exact since Darwin's time: the fossil lemurs have been especially workedup by Cope, Forsyth Major, Ameghino, and others. Darwin knew very littleabout fossil monkeys. He mentions two or three anthropoid apes asoccurring in the Miocene of Europe ("Descent of Man", page 240.), but onlynames Dryopithecus, the largest form from the Miocene of France. It waserroneously supposed that this form was related to Hylobates. We now knownot only a form that actually stands near to the gibbon (Pliopithecus), andremains of other anthropoids (Pliohylobates and the fossil chimpanzee,Palaeopithecus), but also several lower catarrhine monkeys, of whichMesopithecus, a form nearly related to the modern Sacred Monkeys (a speciesof Semnopithecus) and found in strata of the Miocene period in Greece, isthe most important. Quite recently, too, Ameghino's investigations havemade us acquainted with fossil monkeys from South America (Anthropops,Homunculus), which, according to their discoverer, are to be regarded as inthe line of human descent.

What Darwin missed most of all--intermediate forms between apes and man--has been recently furnished. (E. Dubois, as is well known, discovered in1893, near Trinil in Java, in the alluvial deposits of the river Bengawan,an important form represented by a skull-cap, some molars, and a femur. His opinion--much disputed as it has been--that in this form, which henamed Pithecanthropus, he has found a long-desired transition-form isshared by the present writer. And although the geological age of thesefossils, which, according to Dubois, belong to the uppermost Tertiaryseries, the Pliocene, has recently been fixed at a later date (the olderDiluvium), the MORPHOLOGICAL VALUE of these interesting remains, that is,the intermediate position of Pithecanthropus, still holds good. Volz sayswith justice ("Das geologische Alter der Pithecanthropus-Schichten beiTrinil, Ost-Java". "Neues Jahrb. f.Mineralogie". Festband, 1907.), thateven if Pithecanthropus is not THE missing link, it is undoubtedly _A_missing link.

As on the one hand there has been found in Pithecanthropus a form which,though intermediate between apes and man, is nevertheless more closelyallied to the apes, so on the other hand, much progress has been made sinceDarwin's day in the discovery and description of the older human remains. Since the famous roof of a skull and the bones of the extremities belongingto it were found in 1856 in the Neandertal near Dusseldorf, the most variedjudgments have been expressed in regard to the significance of the remainsand of the skull in particular. In Darwin's "Descent of Man" there is onlya passing allusion to them ("Descent of Man", page 82.) in connection withthe discussion of the skull-capacity, although the investigations ofSchaaffhausen, King, and Huxley were then known. I believe I have shown,in a series of papers, that the skull in question belongs to a formdifferent from any of the races of man now living, and, with King and Cope,I regard it as at least a different species from living man, and havetherefore designated it Homo primigenius. The form unquestionably belongsto the older Diluvium, and in the later Diluvium human forms alreadyappear, which agree in all essential points with existing human races.

As far back as 1886 the value of the Neandertal skull was greatly enhancedby Fraipont's discovery of two skulls and skeletons from Spy in Belgium. These are excellently described by their discoverer ("La race humaine deNeanderthal ou de Canstatt en Belgique". "Arch. de Biologie", VII. 1887.),and are regarded as belonging to the same group of forms as the Neandertalremains. In 1899 and the following years came the discovery by Gorjanovic-Kramberger of different skeletal parts of at least ten individuals in acave near Krapina in Croatia. (Gorjanovic-Kramberger "Der diluviale Menschvon Krapina in Kroatien", 1906.) It is in particular the form of the lowerjaw which is different from that of all recent races of man, and whichclearly indicates the lowly position of Homo primigenius, while, on theother hand, the long-known skull from Gibraltar, which I ("Studien zurVorgeschichte des Menschen", 1906, pages 154 ff.) have referred to Homoprimigenius, and which has lately been examined in detail by Sollas ("Onthe cranial and facial characters of the Neandertal Race". "Trans. R.Soc." London, vol. 199, 1908, page 281.), has made us acquainted with thesurprising shape of the eye-orbit, of the nose, and of the whole upper partof the face. Isolated lower jaws found at La Naulette in Belgium, and atMalarnaud in France, increase our material which is now as abundant ascould be desired. The most recent discovery of all is that of a skull dugup in August of this year (1908) by Klaatsch and Hauser in the lower grottoof the Le Moustier in Southern France, but this skull has not yet beenfully described. Thus Homo primigenius must also be regarded as occupyinga position in the gap existing between the highest apes and the lowesthuman races, Pithecanthropus, standing in the lower part of it, and Homoprimigenius in the higher, near man. In order to prevent misunderstanding,I should like here to emphasise that in arranging this structural series--anthropoid apes, Pithecanthropus, Homo primigenius, Homo sapiens--I have nointention of establishing it as a direct genealogical series. I shall havesomething to say in regard to the genetic relations of these forms, one toanother, when discussing the different theories of descent current at thepresent day. ((Since this essay was written Schoetensack has discoverednear Heidelberg and briefly described an exceedingly interesting lower jawfrom rocks between the Pliocene and Diluvial beds. This exhibitsinteresting differences from the forms of lower jaw of Homo primigenius. (Schoetensack "Der Unterkiefer des Homo heidelbergensis". Leipzig, 1908.) G.S.))

In quite a different domain from that of morphological relationship, namelyin the physiological study of the blood, results have recently been gainedwhich are of the highest importance to the doctrine of descent. Uhlenhuth,Nuttall, and others have established the fact that the blood-serum of arabbit which has previously had human blood injected into it, forms aprecipitate with human blood. This biological reaction was tried with agreat variety of mammalian species, and it was found that those far removedfrom man gave no precipitate under these conditions. But as in other casesamong mammals all nearly related forms yield an almost equally markedprecipitate, so the serum of a rabbit treated with human blood and thenadded to the blood of an anthropoid ape gives ALMOST as marked aprecipitate as in human blood; the reaction to the blood of the lowerEastern monkeys is weaker, that to the Western monkeys weaker still; indeedin this last case there is only a slight clouding after a considerable timeand no actual precipitate. The blood of the Lemuridae (Nuttall) gives noreaction or an extremely weak one, that of the other mammals none whatever.We have in this not only a proof of the literal blood-relationship betweenman and apes, but the degree of relationship with the different main groupsof apes can be determined beyond possibility of mistake.

Finally, it must be briefly mentioned that in regard to remains of humanhandicraft also, the material at our disposal has greatly increased of lateyears, that, as a result of this, the opinions of archaeologists haveundergone many changes, and that, in particular, their views in regard tothe age of the human race have been greatly influenced. There is atendency at the present time to refer the origin of man back to Tertiarytimes. It is true that no remains of Tertiary man have been found, butflints have been discovered which, according to the opinion of mostinvestigators, bear traces either of use, or of very primitive workmanship.Since Rutot's time, following Mortillet's example, investigators havecalled these "eoliths," and they have been traced back by Verworn to theMiocene of the Auvergne, and by Rutot even to the upper Oligocene. Although these eoliths are even nowadays the subject of many differentviews, the preoccupation with them has kept the problem of the age of thehuman race continually before us.

Geology, too, has made great progress since the days of Darwin and Lyell,and has endeavoured with satisfactory results to arrange the human remainsof the Diluvial period in chronological order (Penck). I do not intend toenter upon the question of the primitive home of the human race; since thespace at my disposal will not allow of my touching even very briefly uponall the departments of science which are concerned in the problem of thedescent of man. How Darwin would have rejoiced over each of thediscoveries here briefly outlined! What use he would have made of the newand precious material, which would have prevented the discouragement fromwhich he suffered when preparing the second edition of "The Descent ofMan"! But it was not granted to him to see this progress towards fillingup the gaps in his edifice of which he was so painfully conscious.

He did, however, have the satisfaction of seeing his ideas steadily gainingground, notwithstanding much hostility and deep-rooted prejudice. Even inthe years between the appearance of "The Origin of Species" and of thefirst edition of the "Descent", the idea of a natural descent of man, whichwas only briefly indicated in the work of 1859, had been eagerly welcomedin some quarters. It has been already pointed out how brilliantly Huxleycontributed to the defence and diffusion of Darwin's doctrines, and how in"Man's Place in Nature" he has given us a classic work as a foundation forthe doctrine of the descent of man. As Huxley was Darwin's champion inEngland, so in Germany Carl Vogt, in particular, made himself master of theDarwinian ideas. But above all it was Haeckel who, in energy, eagernessfor battle, and knowledge may be placed side by side with Huxley, who tookover the leadership in the controversy over the new conception of theuniverse. As far back as 1866, in his "Generelle Morphologie", he hadinquired minutely into the question of the descent of man, and not contentwith urging merely the general theory of descent from lower animal forms,he drew up for the first time genealogical trees showing the closerelationships of the different animal groups; the last of these illustratedthe relationships of Mammals, and among them of all groups of the Primates,including man. It was Haeckel's genealogical trees that formed the basisof the special discussion of the relationships of man, in the sixth chapterof Darwin's "Descent of Man".

In the last section of this essay I shall return to Haeckel's conception ofthe special descent of man, the main features of which he still upholds,and rightly so. Haeckel has contributed more than any one else to thespread of the Darwinian doctrine.

I can only allow myself a few words as to the spread of the theory of thenatural descent of man in other countries. The Parisian anthropologicalschool, founded and guided by the genius of Broca, took up the idea of thedescent of man, and made many notable contributions to it (Broca,Manouvrier, Mahoudeau, Deniker and others). In England itself Darwin'swork did not die. Huxley took care of that, for he, with his lofty andunprejudiced mind, dominated and inspired English biology until his deathon June 29, 1895. He had the satisfaction shortly before his death oflearning of Dubois' discovery, which he illustrated by a humorous sketch. ("Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley", Vol. II. page 394.) But thereare still many followers in Darwin's footsteps in England. Keane hasworked at the special genealogical tree of the Primates; Keith has inquiredwhich of the anthropoid apes has the greatest number of characters incommon with man; Morris concerns himself with the evolution of man ingeneral, especially with his acquisition of the erect position. The recentdiscoveries of Pithecanthropus and Homo primigenius are being vigorouslydiscussed; but the present writer is not in a position to form an opinionof the extent to which the idea of descent has penetrated throughoutEngland generally.

In Italy independent work in the domain of the descent of man is beingproduced, especially by Morselli; with him are associated, in theinvestigation of related problems, Sergi and Giuffrida-Ruggeri. From theranks of American investigators we may single out in particular the eminentgeologist Cope, who championed with much decision the idea of the specificdifference of Homo neandertalensis (primigenius) and maintained a moredirect descent of man from the fossil Lemuridae. In South America too, inArgentina, new life is stirring in this department of science. Ameghino inBuenos Ayres has awakened the fossil primates of the Pampas formation tonew life; he even believes that in Tetraprothomo, represented by a femur,he has discovered a direct ancestor of man. Lehmann-Nitsche is working atthe other side of the gulf between apes and men, and he describes aremarkable first cervical vertebra (atlas) from Monte Hermoso as belongingto a form which may bear the same relation to Homo sapiens in South Americaas Homo primigenius does in the Old World. After a minute investigation heestablishes a human species Homo neogaeus, while Ameghino ascribes thisatlas vertebra to his Tetraprothomo.

Thus throughout the whole scientific world there is arising a new life, aneager endeavour to get nearer to Huxley's problema maximum, to penetratemore deeply into the origin of the human race. There are to-day very fewexperts in anatomy and zoology who deny the animal descent of man ingeneral. Religious considerations, old prejudices, the reluctance toaccept man, who so far surpasses mentally all other creatures, as descendedfrom "soulless" animals, prevent a few investigators from giving fulladherence to the doctrine. But there are very few of these who stillpostulate a special act of creation for man. Although the majority ofexperts in anatomy and zoology accept unconditionally the descent of manfrom lower forms, there is much diversity of opinion among them in regardto the special line of descent.

In trying to establish any special hypothesis of descent, whether by thegraphic method of drawing up genealogical trees or otherwise, let us alwaysbear in mind Darwin's words ("Descent of Man", page 229.) and use them as acritical guiding line: "As we have no record of the lines of descent, thepedigree can be discovered only by observing the degrees of resemblancebetween the beings which are to be classed." Darwin carries this furtherby stating "that resemblances in several unimportant structures, in uselessand rudimentary organs, or not now functionally active, or in anembryological condition, are by far the most serviceable forclassification." (Loc. cit.) It has also to be remembered that NUMEROUSseparate points of agreement are of much greater importance than the amountof similarity or dissimilarity in a few points.

The hypotheses as to descent current at the present day may be divided intotwo main groups. The first group seeks for the roots of the human race notamong any of the families of the apes--the anatomically nearest forms--noramong their very similar but less specialised ancestral forms, the fossilrepresentatives of which we can know only in part, but, setting the monkeyson one side, it seeks for them lower down among the fossil Eocene Pseudo-lemuridae or Lemuridae (Cope), or even among the primitive pentadactylousEocene forms, which may either have led directly to the evolution of man(Adloff), or have given rise to an ancestral form common to apes and men(Klaatsch (Klaatsch in his last publications speaks in the main only of anancestral form common to men and anthropoid apes.), Giuffrida-Ruggeri). The common ancestral form, from which man and apes are thus supposed tohave arisen independently, may explain the numerous resemblances whichactually exist between them. That is to say, all the characters upon whichthe great structural resemblance between apes and man depends must havebeen present in their common ancestor. Let us take an example of such acommon character. The bony external ear-passage is in general as highlydeveloped in the lower Eastern monkeys and the anthropoid apes as in man. This character must, therefore, have already been present in the commonprimitive form. In that case it is not easy to understand why the Westernmonkeys have not also inherited the character, instead of possessing only atympanic ring. But it becomes more intelligible if we assume that formswith a primitive tympanic ring were the original type, and that from thesewere evolved, on the one hand, the existing New World monkeys withpersistent tympanic ring, and on the other an ancestral form common to thelower Old World monkeys, the anthropoid apes and man. For man shares withthese the character in question, and it is also one of the "unimportant"characters required by Darwin. Thus we have two divergent lines arisingfrom the ancestral form, the Western monkeys (Platyrrhine) on the one hand,and an ancestral form common to the lower Eastern monkeys, the anthropoidapes, and man, on the other. But considerations similar to those whichshowed it to be impossible that man should have developed from an ancestorcommon to him and the monkeys, yet outside of and parallel with these, maybe urged also against the likelihood of a parallel evolution of the lowerEastern monkeys, the anthropoid apes, and man. The anthropoid apes have incommon with man many characters which are not present in the lower OldWorld monkeys. These characters must therefore have been present in theancestral form common to the three groups. But here, again, it isdifficult to understand why the lower Eastern monkeys should not also haveinherited these characters. As this is not the case, there remains noalternative but to assume divergent evolution from an indifferent form. The lower Eastern monkeys are carrying on the evolution in one direction--Imight almost say towards a blind alley--while anthropoids and men havestruck out a progressive path, at first in common, which explains the manypoints of resemblance between them, without regarding man as deriveddirectly from the anthropoids. Their many striking points of agreementindicate a common descent, and cannot be explained as phenomena ofconvergence.

I believe I have shown in the above sketch that a theory which derives mandirectly from lower forms without regarding apes as transition-types leadsad absurdum. The close structural relationship between man and monkeys canonly be understood if both are brought into the same line of evolution. Totrace man's line of descent directly back to the old Eocene mammals,alongside of, but with no relation to these very similar forms, is toabandon the method of exact comparison, which, as Darwin rightlyrecognised, alone justifies us in drawing up genealogical trees on thebasis of resemblances and differences. The farther down we go the moredoes the ground slip from beneath our feet. Even the Lemuridae show verynumerous divergent conditions, much more so the Eocene mammals (Creodonta,Condylarthra), the chief resemblance of which to man consists in thepossession of pentadactylous hands and feet! Thus the farther course ofthe line of descent disappears in the darkness of the ancestry of themammals. With just as much reason we might pass by the Vertebratesaltogether, and go back to the lower Invertebrates, but in that case itwould be much easier to say that man has arisen independently, and hasevolved, without relation to any animals, from the lowest primitive form tohis present isolated and dominant position. But this would be to deny allvalue to classification, which must after all be the ultimate basis of agenealogical tree. We can, as Darwin rightly observed, only infer the lineof descent from the degree of resemblance between single forms. If weregard man as directly derived from primitive forms very far back, we haveno way of explaining the many points of agreement between him and themonkeys in general, and the anthropoid apes in particular. These mustremain an inexplicable marvel.

I have thus, I trust, shown that the first class of special theories ofdescent, which assumes that man has developed, parallel with the monkeys,but without relation to them, from very low primitive forms cannot beupheld, because it fails to take into account the close structural affinityof man and monkeys. I cannot but regard this hypothesis as lamentablyretrograde, for it makes impossible any application of the facts that havebeen discovered in the course of the anatomical and embryological study ofman and monkeys, and indeed prejudges investigations of that class aspointless. The whole method is perverted; an unjustifiable theory ofdescent is first formulated with the aid of the imagination, and then weare asked to declare that all structural relations between man and monkeys,and between the different groups of the latter, are valueless,--the factbeing that they are the only true basis on which a genealogical tree can beconstructed.

So much for this most modern method of classification, which has probablyfound adherents because it would deliver us from the relationship to apeswhich many people so much dislike. In contrast to it we have the secondclass of special hypotheses of descent, which keeps strictly to the neareststructural relationships. This is the only basis that justifies thedrawing up of a special hypothesis of descent. If this fundamentalproposition be recognised, it will be admitted that the doctrine of specialdescent upheld by Haeckel, and set forth in Darwin's "Descent of Man", isstill valid to-day. In the genealogical tree, man's place is quite closeto the anthropoid apes; these again have as their nearest relatives thelower Old World monkeys, and their progenitors must be sought among theless differentiated Platyrrhine monkeys, whose most important charactershave been handed on to the present day New World monkeys. How thedifferent genera are to be arranged within the general scheme indicateddepends in the main on the classificatory value attributed to individualcharacters. This is particularly true in regard to Pithecanthropus, whichI consider as the root of a branch which has sprung from the anthropoid aperoot and has led up to man; the latter I have designated the family of theHominidae.

For the rest, there are, as we have said, various possible ways ofconstructing the narrower genealogy within the limits of this branchincluding men and apes, and these methods will probably continue to changewith the accumulation of new facts. Haeckel himself has modified hisgenealogical tree of the Primates in certain details since the publicationof his "Generelle Morphologie" in 1866, but its general basis remains thesame. (Haeckel's latest genealogical tree is to be found in his mostrecent work, "Unsere Ahnenreihe". Jena, 1908.) All the specialgenealogical trees drawn up on the lines laid down by Haeckel and Darwin--and that of Dubois may be specially mentioned--are based, in general, onthe close relationship of monkeys and men, although they may vary indetail. Various hypotheses have been formulated on these lines, withspecial reference to the evolution of man. "Pithecanthropus" is regardedby some authorities as the direct ancestor of man, by others as a side-track failure in the attempt at the evolution of man. The problem of themonophyletic or polyphyletic origin of the human race has also been muchdiscussed. Sergi (Sergi G. "Europa", 1908.) inclines towards theassumption of a polyphyletic origin of the three main races of man, theAfrican primitive form of which has given rise also to the gorilla andchimpanzee, the Asiatic to the Orang, the Gibbon, and Pithecanthropus. Kollmann regards existing human races as derived from small primitive races(pigmies), and considers that Homo primigenius must have arisen in asecondary and degenerative manner.

But this is not the place, nor have I the space to criticise the variousspecial theories of descent. One, however, must receive particular notice.According to Ameghino, the South American monkeys (Pitheculites) from theoldest Tertiary of the Pampas are the forms from which have arisen theexisting American monkeys on the one hand, and on the other, the extinctSouth American Homunculidae, which are also small forms. From these last,anthropoid apes and man have, he believes, been evolved. Among theprogenitors of man, Ameghino reckons the form discovered by him(Tetraprothomo), from which a South American primitive man, Homo pampaeus,might be directly evolved, while on the other hand all the lower Old Worldmonkeys may have arisen from older fossil South American forms(Clenialitidae), the distribution of which may be explained by the bridgeformerly existing between South America and Africa, as may be thederivation of all existing human races from Homo pampaeus. (See Ameghino'slatest paper, "Notas preliminares sobre el Tetraprothomo argentinus", etc. "Anales del Museo nacional de Buenos Aires", XVI. pages 107-242, 1907.) The fossil forms discovered by Ameghino deserve the most minuteinvestigation, as does also the fossil man from South America of whichLehmann-Nitsche ("Nouvelles recherches sur la formation pampeenne etl'homme fossile de la Republique Argentine". "Rivista del Museo de laPlata", T. XIV. pages 193-488.) has made a thorough study.

It is obvious that, notwithstanding the necessity for fitting man's line ofdescent into the genealogical tree of the Primates, especially the apes,opinions in regard to it differ greatly in detail. This could not beotherwise, since the different Primate forms, especially the fossil forms,are still far from being exhaustively known. But one thing remainscertain,--the idea of the close relationship between man and monkeys setforth in Darwin's "Descent of Man". Only those who deny the many points ofagreement, the sole basis of classification, and thus of a naturalgenealogical tree, can look upon the position of Darwin and Haeckel asantiquated, or as standing on an insufficient foundation. For such agenealogical tree is nothing more than a summarised representation of whatis known in regard to the degree of resemblance between the differentforms.

Darwin's work in regard to the descent of man has not been surpassed; themore we immerse ourselves in the study of the structural relationshipsbetween apes and man, the more is our path illumined by the clear lightradiating from him, and through his calm and deliberate investigation,based on a mass of material in the accumulation of which he has never hadan equal. Darwin's fame will be bound up for all time with theunprejudiced investigation of the question of all questions, the descent ofthe human race.

VIII. CHARLES DARWIN AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST.

By ERNST HAECKEL.Professor of Zoology in the University of Jena.

The great advance that anthropology has made in the second half of thenineteenth century is due in the first place, to Darwin's discovery of theorigin of man. No other problem in the whole field of research is somomentous as that of "Man's place in nature," which was justly described byHuxley (1863) as the most fundamental of all questions. Yet the scientificsolution of this problem was impossible until the theory of descent hadbeen established.

It is now a hundred years since the great French biologist Jean Lamarckpublished his "Philosophie Zoologique". By a remarkable coincidence theyear in which that work was issued, 1809, was the year of the birth of hismost distinguished successor, Charles Darwin. Lamarck had alreadyrecognised that the descent of man from a series of other Vertebrates--thatis, from a series of Ape-like Primates--was essentially involved in thegeneral theory of transformation which he had erected on a broad inductivebasis; and he had sufficient penetration to detect the agencies that hadbeen at work in the evolution of the erect bimanous man from the arborealand quadrumanous ape. He had, however, few empirical arguments to advancein support of his hypothesis, and it could not be established until thefurther development of the biological sciences--the founding of comparativeembryology by Baer (1828) and of the cell-theory by Schleiden and Schwann(1838), the advance of physiology under Johannes Muller (1833), and theenormous progress of palaeontology and comparative anatomy between 1820 and1860--provided this necessary foundation. Darwin was the first tocoordinate the ample results of these lines of research. With no lesscomprehensiveness than discrimination he consolidated them as a basis of amodified theory of descent, and associated with them his own theory ofnatural selection, which we take to be distinctive of "Darwinism" in thestricter sense. The illuminating truth of these cumulative arguments wasso great in every branch of biology that, in spite of the most vehementopposition, the battle was won within a single decade, and Darwin securedthe general admiration and recognition that had been denied to hisforerunner, Lamarck, up to the hour of his death (1829).

Before, however, we consider the momentous influence that Darwinism has hadin anthropology, we shall find it useful to glance at its history in thecourse of the last half century, and notice the various theories that havecontributed to its advance. The first attempt to give extensive expressionto the reform of biology by Darwin's work will be found in my "GenerelleMorphologie" (1866) ("Generelle Morphologie der Organismen", 2 vols.,Berlin, 1866.) which was followed by a more popular treatment of thesubject in my "Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte (1868) (English translation;"The History of Creation", London, 1876.), a compilation from the earlierwork. In the first volume of the "Generelle Morphologie" I endeavoured toshow the great importance of evolution in settling the fundamentalquestions of biological philosophy, especially in regard to comparativeanatomy. In the second volume I dealt broadly with the principle ofevolution, distinguishing ontogeny and phylogeny as its two coordinate mainbranches, and associating the two in the Biogenetic Law. The Law may beformulated thus: "Ontogeny (embryology or the development of theindividual) is a concise and compressed recapitulation of phylogeny (thepalaeontological or genealogical series) conditioned by laws of heredityand adaptation." The "Systematic introduction to general evolution," withwhich the second volume of the "Generelle Morphologie" opens, was the firstattempt to draw up a natural system of organisms (in harmony with theprinciples of Lamarck and Darwin) in the form of a hypothetical pedigree,and was provisionally set forth in eight genealogical tables.

In the nineteenth chapter of the "Generelle Morphologie"--a part of whichhas been republished, without any alteration, after a lapse of forty years--I made a critical study of Lamarck's theory of descent and of Darwin'stheory of selection, and endeavoured to bring the complex phenomena ofheredity and adaptation under definite laws for the first time. Heredity Idivided into conservative and progressive: adaptation into indirect (orpotential) and direct (or actual). I then found it possible to give someexplanation of the correlation of the two physiological functions in thestruggle for life (selection), and to indicate the important laws ofdivergence (or differentiation) and complexity (or division of labour),which are the direct and inevitable outcome of selection. Finally, Imarked off dysteleology as the science of the aimless (vestigial, abortive,atrophied, and useless) organs and parts of the body. In all this I workedfrom a strictly monistic standpoint, and sought to explain all biologicalphenomena on the mechanical and naturalistic lines that had long beenrecognised in the study of inorganic nature. Then (1866), as now, beingconvinced of the unity of nature, the fundamental identity of the agenciesat work in the inorganic and the organic worlds, I discarded vitalism,teleology, and all hypotheses of a mystic character.

It was clear from the first that it was essential, in the monisticconception of evolution, to distinguish between the laws of conservativeand progressive heredity. Conservative heredity maintains from generationto generation the enduring characters of the species. Each organismtransmits to its descendants a part of the morphological and physiologicalqualities that it has received from its parents and ancestors. On theother hand, progressive heredity brings new characters to the species--characters that were not found in preceding generations. Each organism maytransmit to its offspring a part of the morphological and physiologicalfeatures that it has itself acquired, by adaptation, in the course of itsindividual career, through the use or disuse of particular organs, theinfluence of environment, climate, nutrition, etc. At that time I gave thename of "progressive heredity" to this inheritance of acquired characters,as a short and convenient expression, but have since changed the term to"transformative heredity" (as distinguished from conservative). This termis preferable, as inherited regressive modifications (degeneration,retrograde metamorphisis, etc.) come under the same head.

Transformative heredity--or the transmission of acquired characters--is oneof the most important principles in evolutionary science. Unless we admitit most of the facts of comparative anatomy and physiology areinexplicable. That was the conviction of Darwin no less than of Lamarck,of Spencer as well as Virchow, of Huxley as well as Gegenbaur, indeed ofthe great majority of speculative biologists. This fundamental principlewas for the first time called in question and assailed in 1885 by AugustWeismann of Freiburg, the eminent zoologist to whom the theory of evolutionowes a great deal of valuable support, and who has attained distinction byhis extension of the theory of selection. In explanation of the phenomenaof heredity he introduced a new theory, the "theory of the continuity ofthe germ-plasm." According to him the living substance in all organismsconsists of two quite distinct kinds of plasm, somatic and germinal. Thepermanent germ-plasm, or the active substance of the two germ-cells (egg-cell and sperm-cell), passes unchanged through a series of generations, andis not affected by environmental influences. The environment modifies onlythe soma-plasm, the organs and tissues of the body. The modifications thatthese parts undergo through the influence of the environment or their ownactivity (use and habit), do not affect the germ-plasm, and cannottherefore be transmitted.

This theory of the continuity of the germ-plasm has been expounded byWeismann during the last twenty-four years in a number of able volumes, andis regarded by many biologists, such as Mr Francis Galton, Sir E. RayLankester, and Professor J. Arthur Thomson (who has recently made athoroughgoing defence of it in his important work "Heredity" (London,1908.)), as the most striking advance in evolutionary science. On theother hand, the theory has been rejected by Herbert Spencer, Sir W. Turner,Gegenbaur, Kolliker, Hertwig, and many others. For my part I have, withall respect for the distinguished Darwinian, contested the theory from thefirst, because its whole foundation seems to me erroneous, and itsdeductions do not seem to be in accord with the main facts of comparativemorphology and physiology. Weismann's theory in its entirety is a finelyconceived molecular hypothesis, but it is devoid of empirical basis. Thenotion of the absolute and permanent independence of the germ-plasm, asdistinguished from the soma-plasm, is purely speculative; as is also thetheory of germinal selection. The determinants, ids, and idants, arepurely hypothetical elements. The experiments that have been devised todemonstrate their existence really prove nothing.

It seems to me quite improper to describe this hypothetical structure as"Neodarwinism." Darwin was just as convinced as Lamarck of thetransmission of acquired characters and its great importance in the schemeof evolution. I had the good fortune to visit Darwin at Down three timesand discuss with him the main principles of his system, and on eachoccasion we were fully agreed as to the incalculable importance of what Icall transformative inheritance. It is only proper to point out thatWeismann's theory of the germ-plasm is in express contradiction to thefundamental principles of Darwin and Lamarck. Nor is it more acceptable inwhat one may call its "ultradarwinism"--the idea that the theory ofselection explains everything in the evolution of the organic world. Thisbelief in the "omnipotence of natural selection" was not shared by Darwinhimself. Assuredly, I regard it as of the utmost value, as the process ofnatural selection through the struggle for life affords an explanation ofthe mechanical origin of the adapted organisation. It solves the greatproblem: how could the finely adapted structure of the animal or plantbody be formed unless it was built on a preconceived plan? It thus enablesus to dispense with the teleology of the metaphysician and the dualist, andto set aside the old mythological and poetic legends of creation. The ideahad occurred in vague form to the great Empedocles 2000 years before thetime of Darwin, but it was reserved for modern research to give it ampleexpression. Nevertheless, natural selection does not of itself give thesolution of all our evolutionary problems. It has to be taken inconjunction with the transformism of Lamarck, with which it is in completeharmony.

The monumental greatness of Charles Darwin, who surpasses every otherstudent of science in the nineteenth century by the loftiness of hismonistic conception of nature and the progressive influence of his ideas,is perhaps best seen in the fact that not one of his many successors hassucceeded in modifying his theory of descent in any essential point or indiscovering an entirely new standpoint in the interpretation of the organicworld. Neither Nageli nor Weismann, neither De Vries nor Roux, has donethis. Nageli, in his "Mechanisch-Physiologische Theorie derAbstammungslehre" (Munich, 1884.), which is to a great extent in agreementwith Weismann, constructed a theory of the idioplasm, that represents it(like the germ-plasm) as developing continuously in a definite directionfrom internal causes. But his internal "principle of progress" is at thebottom just as teleological as the vital force of the Vitalists, and themicellar structure of the idioplasm is just as hypothetical as the"dominant" structure of the germ-plasm. In 1889 Moritz Wagner sought toexplain the origin of species by migration and isolation, and on that basisconstructed a special "migration-theory." This, however, is not out ofharmony with the theory of selection. It merely elevates one single factorin the theory to a predominant position. Isolation is only a special caseof selection, as I had pointed out in the fifteenth chapter of my "Naturalhistory of creation". The "mutation-theory" of De Vries ("DieMutationstheorie", Leipzig, 1903.), that would explain the origin ofspecies by sudden and saltatory variations rather than by gradualmodification, is regarded by many botanists as a great step in advance, butit is generally rejected by zoologists. It affords no explanation of thefacts of adaptation, and has no causal value.

Much more important than these theories is that of Wilhelm Roux ("Der Kampfder Theile im Organismus", Leipzig, 1881.) of "the struggle of parts withinthe organism, a supplementation of the theory of mechanical adaptation." He explains the functional autoformation of the purposive structure by acombination of Darwin's principle of selection with Lamarck's idea oftransformative heredity, and applies the two in conjunction to the facts ofhistology. He lays stress on the significance of functional adaptation,which I had described in 1866, under the head of cumulative adaptation, asthe most important factor in evolution. Pointing out its influence in thecell-life of the tissues, he puts "cellular selection" above "personalselection," and shows how the finest conceivable adaptations in thestructure of the tissue may be brought about quite mechanically, withoutpreconceived plan. This "mechanical teleology" is a valuable extension ofDarwin's monistic principle of selection to the whole field of cellularphysiology and histology, and is wholly destructive of dualistic vitalism.

The most important advance that evolution has made since Darwin and themost valuable amplification of his theory of selection is, in my opinion,the work of Richard Semon: "Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechseldes organischen Geschehens" (Leipzig, 1904.). He offers a psychologicalexplanation of the facts of heredity by reducing them to a process of(unconscious) memory. The physiologist Ewald Hering had shown in 1870 thatmemory must be regarded as a general function of organic matter, and thatwe are quite unable to explain the chief vital phenomena, especially thoseof reproduction and inheritance, unless we admit this unconscious memory.In my essay "Die Perigenesis der Plastidule" (Berlin, 1876.) I elaboratedthis far-reaching idea, and applied the physical principle of transmittedmotion to the plastidules, or active molecules of plasm. I concluded that"heredity is the memory of the plastidules, and variability their power ofcomprehension." This "provisional attempt to give a mechanical explanationof the elementary processes of evolution" I afterwards extended by showingthat sensitiveness is (as Carl Nageli, Ernst Mach, and Albrecht Rau expressit) a general quality of matter. This form of panpsychism finds itssimplest expression in the "trinity of substance."

To the two fundamental attributes that Spinoza ascribed to substance--Extension (matter as occupying space) and Cogitation (energy, force)--wenow add the third fundamental quality of Psychoma (sensitiveness, soul). Ifurther elaborated this trinitarian conception of substance in thenineteenth chapter of my "Die Lebenswunder" (1904) ("Wonders of Life",London, 1904.), and it seems to me well calculated to afford a monisticsolution of many of the antitheses of philosophy.

This important Mneme-theory of Semon and the luminous physiologicalexperiments and observations associated with it not only throw considerablelight on transformative inheritance, but provide a sound physiologicalfoundation for the biogenetic law. I had endeavoured to show in 1874, inthe first chapter of my "Anthropogenie" (English translation; "TheEvolution of Man", 2 volumes, London, 1879 and 1905.), that thisfundamental law of organic evolution holds good generally, and that thereis everywhere a direct causal connection between ontogeny and phylogeny. "Phylogenesis is the mechanical cause of ontogenesis"; in other words, "Theevolution of the stem or race is--in accordance with the laws of heredityand adaptation--the real cause of all the changes that appear, in acondensed form, in the development of the individual organism from theovum, in either the embryo or the larva."

It is now fifty years since Charles Darwin pointed out, in the thirteenthchapter of his epoch-making "Origin of Species", the fundamental importanceof embryology in connection with his theory of descent:

"The leading facts in embryology, which are second to none in importance,are explained on the principle of variations in the many descendants fromsome one ancient progenitor, having appeared at a not very early period oflife, and having been inherited at a corresponding period." ("Origin ofSpecies" (6th edition), page 396.)

He then shows that the striking resemblance of the embryos and larvae ofclosely related animals, which in the mature stage belong to widelydifferent species and genera, can only be explained by their descent from acommon progenitor. Fritz Muller made a closer study of these importantphenomena in the instructive instance of the Crustacean larva, as given inhis able work "Fur Darwin" (1864). (English translation; "Facts andArguments for Darwin", London, 1869.) I then, in 1872, extended the rangeso as to include all animals (with the exception of the unicellularProtozoa) and showed, by means of the theory of the Gastraea, that allmulticellular, tissue-forming animals--all the Metazoa--develop inessentially the same way from the primary germ-layers. I conceived theembryonic form, in which the whole structure consists of only two layers ofcells, and is known as the gastrula, to be the ontogenetic recapitulation,maintained by tenacious heredity, of a primitive common progenitor of allthe Metazoa, the Gastraea. At a later date (1895) Monticelli discoveredthat this conjectural ancestral form is still preserved in certainprimitive Coelenterata--Pemmatodiscus, Kunstleria, and the nearly-relatedOrthonectida.

The general application of the biogenetic law to all classes of animals andplants has been proved in my "Systematische Phylogenie". (3 volumes,Berlin, 1894-96.) It has, however, been frequently challenged, both bybotanists and zoologists, chiefly owing to the fact that many have failedto distinguish its two essential elements, palingenesis and cenogenesis. As early as 1874 I had emphasised, in the first chapter of my "Evolution ofMan", the importance of discriminating carefully between these two sets ofphenomena:

"In the evolutionary appreciation of the facts of embryology we must takeparticular care to distinguish sharply and clearly between the primary,palingenetic evolutionary processes and the secondary, cenogeneticprocesses. The palingenetic phenomena, or embryonic RECAPITULATIONS, aredue to heredity, to the transmission of characters from one generation toanother. They enable us to draw direct inferences in regard tocorresponding structures in the development of the species (e.g. the chordaor the branchial arches in all vertebrate embryos). The cenogeneticphenomena, on the other hand, or the embryonic VARIATIONS, cannot be tracedto inheritance from a mature ancestor, but are due to the adaptation of theembryo or the larva to certain conditions of its individual development(e.g. the amnion, the allantois, and the vitelline arteries in the embryosof the higher vertebrates). These cenogenetic phenomena are lateradditions; we must not infer from them that there were correspondingprocesses in the ancestral history, and hence they are apt to mislead."

The fundamental importance of these facts of comparative anatomy, atavism,and the rudimentary organs, was pointed out by Darwin in the first part ofhis classic work, "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex"(1871). ("Descent of Man" (Popular Edition), page 927.) In the "Generalsummary and conclusion" (chapter XXI.) he was able to say, with perfectjustice: "He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomenaof nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the workof a separate act of creation. He will be forced to admit that the closeresemblance of the embryo of man to that, for instance, of a dog--theconstruction of his skull, limbs, and whole frame on the same plan withthat of other mammals, independently of the uses to which the parts may beput--the occasional reappearance of various structures, for instance ofseveral muscles, which man does not normally possess, but which are commonto the Quadrumana--and a crowd of analogous facts--all point in theplainest manner to the conclusion that man is the co-descendant with othermammals of a common progenitor."

These few lines of Darwin's have a greater scientific value than hundredsof those so-called "anthropological treatises," which give detaileddescriptions of single organs, or mathematical tables with series ofnumbers and what are claimed to be "exact analyses," but are devoid ofsynoptic conclusions and a philosophical spirit.

Charles Darwin is not generally recognised as a great anthropologist, nordoes the school of modern anthropologists regard him as a leadingauthority. In Germany, especially, the great majority of the members ofthe anthropological societies took up an attitude of hostility to him fromthe very beginning of the controversy in 1860. "The Descent of Man" wasnot merely rejected, but even the discussion of it was forbidden on theground that it was "unscientific."

The centre of this inveterate hostility for thirty years--especially after1877--was Rudolph Virchow of Berlin, the leading investigator inpathological anatomy, who did so much for the reform of medicine by hisestablishment of cellular pathology in 1858. As a prominent representativeof "exact" or "descriptive" anthropology, and lacking a broad equipment incomparative anatomy and ontogeny, he was unable to accept the theory ofdescent. In earlier years, and especially during his splendid period ofactivity at Wurzburg (1848-1856), he had been a consistent free-thinker,and had in a number of able articles (collected in his "GesammelteAbhandlungen") ("Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur wissenschaftlichen Medizin",Berlin, 1856.) upheld the unity of human nature, the inseparability of bodyand spirit. In later years at Berlin, where he was more occupied withpolitical work and sociology (especially after 1866), he abandoned thepositive monistic position for one of agnosticism and scepticism, and madeconcessions to the dualistic dogma of a spiritual world apart from thematerial frame.

In the course of a Scientific Congress at Munich in 1877 the conflict ofthese antithetic views of nature came into sharp relief. At this memorableCongress I had undertaken to deliver the first address (September 18th) onthe subject of "Modern evolution in relation to the whole of science." Imaintained that Darwin's theory not only solved the great problem of theorigin of species, but that its implications, especially in regard to thenature of man, threw considerable light on the whole of science, and onanthropology in particular. The discovery of the real origin of man byevolution from a long series of mammal ancestors threw light on his placein nature in every aspect, as Huxley had already shown in his excellentlectures of 1863. Just as all the organs and tissues of the human body hadoriginated from those of the nearest related mammals, certain ape-likeforms, so we were bound to conclude that his mental qualities also had beenderived from those of his extinct primate ancestor.

This monistic view of the origin and nature of man, which is now admittedby nearly all who have the requisite acquaintance with biology, andapproach the subject without prejudice, encountered a sharp opposition atthat time. The opposition found its strongest expression in an addressthat Virchow delivered at Munich four days afterwards (September 22nd), on"The freedom of science in the modern State." He spoke of the theory ofevolution as an unproved hypothesis, and declared that it ought not to betaught in the schools, because it was dangerous to the State. "We mustnot," he said, "teach that man has descended from the ape or any otheranimal." When Darwin, usually so lenient in his judgment, read the Englishtranslation of Virchow's speech, he expressed his disapproval in strongterms. But the great authority that Virchow had--an authority well foundedin pathology and sociology--and his prestige as President of the GermanAnthropological Society, had the effect of preventing any member of theSociety from raising serious opposition to him for thirty years. Numbersof journals and treatises repeated his dogmatic statement: "It is quitecertain that man has descended neither from the ape nor from any otheranimal." In this he persisted till his death in 1902. Since that time thewhole position of German anthropology has changed. The question is nolonger whether man was created by a distinct supernatural act or evolvedfrom other mammals, but to which line of the animal hierarchy we must lookfor the actual series of ancestors. The interested reader will find anaccount of this "battle of Munich" (1877) in my three Berlin lectures(April, 1905) ("Der Kampf um die Entwickelungs-Gedanken". (Englishtranslation; "Last Words on Evolution", London, 1906.)

The main points in our genealogical tree were clearly recognised by Darwinin the sixth chapter of the "Descent of Man". Lowly organised fishes, likethe lancelet (Amphioxus), are descended from lower invertebrates resemblingthe larvae of an existing Tunicate (Appendicularia). From these primitivefishes were evolved higher fishes of the ganoid type and others of the typeof Lepidosiren (Dipneusta). It is a very small step from these to theAmphibia:

"In the class of mammals the steps are not difficult to conceive which ledfrom the ancient Monotremata to the ancient Marsupials; and from these tothe early progenitors of the placental mammals. We may thus ascend to theLemuridae; and the interval is not very wide from these to the Simiadae. The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and OldWorld monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder andglory of the Universe, proceeded." ("Descent of Man" (Popular Edition),page 255.)

In these few lines Darwin clearly indicated the way in which we were toconceive our ancestral series within the vertebrates. It is fullyconfirmed by all the arguments of comparative anatomy and embryology, ofpalaeontology and physiology; and all the research of the subsequent fortyyears has gone to establish it. The deep interest in geology which Darwinmaintained throughout his life and his complete knowledge of palaeontologyenabled him to grasp the fundamental importance of the palaeontologicalrecord more clearly than anthropologists and zoologists usually do.

There has been much debate in subsequent decades whether Darwin himselfmaintained that man was descended from the ape, and many writers havesought to deny it. But the lines I have quoted verbatim from theconclusion of the sixth chapter of the "Descent of Man" (1871) leave nodoubt that he was as firmly convinced of it as was his great precursor JeanLamarck in 1809. Moreover, Darwin adds, with particular explicitness, inthe "general summary and conclusion" (chapter XXI.) of that standard work("Descent of Man", page 930.):

"By considering the embryological structure of man--the homologies which hepresents with the lower animals,--the rudiments which he retains,--and thereversions to which he is liable, we can partly recall in imagination theformer condition of our early progenitors; and can approximately place themin their proper place in the zoological series. We thus learn that man isdescended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits,and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structurehad been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed amongst theQuadrumana, as surely as the still more ancient progenitor of the Old andNew World monkeys."

These clear and definite lines leave no doubt that Darwin--so critical andcautious in regard to important conclusions--was quite as firmly convincedof the descent of man from the apes (the Catarrhinae, in particular) asLamarck was in 1809 and Huxley in 1863.

It is to be noted particularly that, in these and other observations on thesubject, Darwin decidedly assumes the monophyletic origin of the mammals,including man. It is my own conviction that this is of the greatestimportance. A number of difficult questions in regard to the developmentof man, in respect of anatomy, physiology, psychology, and embryology, areeasily settled if we do not merely extend our progonotaxis to our nearestrelatives, the anthropoid apes and the tailed monkeys from which these havedescended, but go further back and find an ancestor in the group of theLemuridae, and still further back to the Marsupials and Monotremata. Theessential identity of all the Mammals in point of anatomical structure andembryonic development--in spite of their astonishing differences inexternal appearance and habits of life--is so palpably significant thatmodern zoologists are agreed in the hypothesis that they have all sprungfrom a common root, and that this root may be sought in the earlierPalaeozoic Amphibia.

The fundamental importance of this comparative morphology of the Mammals,as a sound basis of scientific anthropology, was recognised just before thebeginning of the nineteenth century, when Lamarck first emphasised (1794)the division of the animal kingdom into Vertebrates and Invertebrates. Even thirteen years earlier (1781), when Goethe made a close study of themammal skeleton in the Anatomical Institute at Jena, he was intenselyinterested to find that the composition of the skull was the same in man asin the other mammals. His discovery of the os intermaxillare in man(1784), which was contradicted by most of the anatomists of the time, andhis ingenious "vertebral theory of the skull," were the splendid fruit ofhis morphological studies. They remind us how Germany's greatestphilosopher and poet was for many years ardently absorbed in thecomparative anatomy of man and the mammals, and how he divined that theirwonderful identity in structure was no mere superficial resemblance, butpointed to a deep internal connection. In my "Generelle Morphologie"(1866), in which I published the first attempts to construct phylogenetictrees, I have given a number of remarkable theses of Goethe, which may becalled "phyletic prophecies." They justify us in regarding him as aprecursor of Darwin.

In the ensuing forty years I have made many conscientious efforts topenetrate further along that line of anthropological research that wasopened up by Goethe, Lamarck, and Darwin. I have brought together the manyvaluable results that have constantly been reached in comparative anatomy,physiology, ontogeny, and palaeontology, and maintained the effort toreform the classification of animals and plants in an evolutionary sense.The first rough drafts of pedigrees that were published in the "GenerelleMorphologie" have been improved time after time in the ten editions of my"Naturaliche Schopfungsgeschichte" (1868-1902). (English translation; "TheHistory of Creation", London, 1876.) A sounder basis for my phyletichypotheses, derived from a discriminating combination of the three greatrecords--morphology, ontogeny, and palaeontology--was provided in the threevolumes of my "Systematische Phylogenie (Berlin, 1894-96.) (1894 Protistsand Plants, 1895 Vertebrates, 1896 Invertebrates). In my "Anthropogenie"(Leipzig, 1874, 5th edition 1905. English translation; "The Evolution ofMan", London, 1905.) I endeavoured to employ all the known facts ofcomparative ontogeny (embryology) for the purpose of completing my schemeof human phylogeny (evolution). I attempted to sketch the historicaldevelopment of each organ of the body, beginning with the most elementarystructures in the germ-layers of the Gastraea. At the same time I drew upa corrected statement of the most important steps in the line of ourancestral series.

At the fourth International Congress of Zoology at Cambridge (August 26th,1898) I delivered an address on "Our present knowledge of the Descent ofMan." It was translated into English, enriched with many valuable notesand additions, by my friend and pupil in earlier days Dr Hans Gadow(Cambridge), and published under the title: "The Last Link; our presentknowledge of the Descent of Man". (London, 1898.) The determination ofthe chief animal forms that occur in the line of our ancestry is thererestricted to thirty types, and these are distributed in six main groups.

If I have succeeded in furthering, in some degree, by these anthropologicalworks, the solution of the great problem of Man's place in nature, andparticularly in helping to trace the definite stages in our ancestralseries, I owe the success, not merely to the vast progress that biology hasmade in the last half century, but largely to the luminous example of thegreat investigators who have applied themselves to the problem, with somuch assiduity and genius, for a century and a quarter--I mean Goethe andLamarck, Gegenbaur and Huxley, but, above all, Charles Darwin. It was thegreat genius of Darwin that first brought together the scattered materialof biology and shaped it into that symmetrical temple of scientificknowledge, the theory of descent. It was Darwin who put the crown on theedifice by his theory of natural selection. Not until this broad inductivelaw was firmly established was it possible to vindicate the specialconclusion, the descent of man from a series of other Vertebrates. By hisilluminating discovery Darwin did more for anthropology than thousands ofthose writers, who are more specifically titled anthropologists, have doneby their technical treatises. We may, indeed, say that it is not merely asan exact observer and ingenious experimenter, but as a distinguishedanthropologist and far-seeing thinker, that Darwin takes his place amongthe greatest men of science of the nineteenth century.

To appreciate fully the immortal merit of Darwin in connection withanthropology, we must remember that not only did his chief work, "TheOrigin of Species", which opened up a new era in natural history in 1859,sustain the most virulent and widespread opposition for a lengthy period,but even thirty years later, when its principles were generally recognisedand adopted, the application of them to man was energetically contested bymany high scientific authorities. Even Alfred Russel Wallace, whodiscovered the principle of natural selection independently in 1858, didnot concede that it was applicable to the higher mental and moral qualitiesof man. Dr Wallace still holds a spiritualist and dualist view of thenature of man, contending that he is composed of a material frame(descended from the apes) and an immortal immaterial soul (infused by ahigher power). This dual conception, moreover, is still predominant in thewide circles of modern theology and metaphysics, and has the general andinfluential adherence of the more conservative classes of society.

In strict contradiction to this mystical dualism, which is generallyconnected with teleology and vitalism, Darwin always maintained thecomplete unity of human nature, and showed convincingly that thepsychological side of man was developed, in the same way as the body, fromthe less advanced soul of the anthropoid ape, and, at a still more remoteperiod, from the cerebral functions of the older vertebrates. The eighthchapter of the "Origin of Species", which is devoted to instinct, containsweighty evidence that the instincts of animals are subject, like all othervital processes, to the general laws of historic development. The specialinstincts of particular species were formed by adaptation, and themodifications thus acquired were handed on to posterity by heredity; intheir formation and preservation natural selection plays the same part asin the transformation of every other physiological function. The highermoral qualities of civilised man have been derived from the lower mentalfunctions of the uncultivated barbarians and savages, and these in turnfrom the social instincts of the mammals. This natural and monisticpsychology of Darwin's was afterwards more fully developed by his friendGeorge Romanes in his excellent works "Mental Evolution in Animals" and"Mental Evolution in Man". (London, 1885; 1888.)

Many valuable and most interesting contributions to this monisticpsychology of man were made by Darwin in his fine work on "The Descent ofMan and Selection in Relation to Sex", and again in his supplementary work,"The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals". To understand thehistorical development of Darwin's anthropology one must read his life andthe introduction to "The Descent of Man". From the moment that he wasconvinced of the truth of the principle of descent--that is to say, fromhis thirtieth year, in 1838--he recognised clearly that man could not beexcluded from its range. He recognised as a logical necessity theimportant conclusion that "man is the co-descendant with other species ofsome ancient, lower, and extinct form." For many years he gathered notesand arguments in support of this thesis, and for the purpose of showing theprobable line of man's ancestry. But in the first edition of "The Originof Species" (1859) he restricted himself to the single line, that by thiswork "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history." In thefifty years that have elapsed since that time the science of the origin andnature of man has made astonishing progress, and we are now fairly agreedin a monistic conception of nature that regards the whole universe,including man, as a wonderful unity, governed by unalterable and eternallaws. In my philosophical book "Die Weltratsel" (1899) ("The Riddle of theUniverse", London, 1900.) and in the supplementary volume "DieLebenswunder" (1904) "The Wonders of Life", London, 1904.), I haveendeavoured to show that this pure monism is securely established, and thatthe admission of the all-powerful rule of the same principle of evolutionthroughout the universe compels us to formulate a single supreme law--theall-embracing "Law of Substance," or the united laws of the constancy ofmatter and the conservation of energy. We should never have reached thissupreme general conception if Charles Darwin--a "monistic philosopher" inthe true sense of the word--had not prepared the way by his theory ofdescent by natural selection, and crowned the great work of his life by theassociation of this theory with a naturalistic anthropology.

IX. SOME PRIMITIVE THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

By J.G. FRAZER.Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

On a bright day in late autumn a good many years ago I had ascended thehill of Panopeus in Phocis to examine the ancient Greek fortificationswhich crest its brow. It was the first of November, but the weather wasvery hot; and when my work among the ruins was done, I was glad to restunder the shade of a clump of fine holly-oaks, to inhale the sweetrefreshing perfume of the wild thyme which scented all the air, and toenjoy the distant prospects, rich in natural beauty, rich too in memoriesof the legendary and historic past. To the south the finely-cut peak ofHelicon peered over the low intervening hills. In the west loomed themighty mass of Parnassus, its middle slopes darkened by pine-woods likeshadows of clouds brooding on the mountain-side; while at its skirtsnestled the ivy-mantled walls of Daulis overhanging the deep glen, whoseromantic beauty accords so well with the loves and sorrows of Procne andPhilomela, which Greek tradition associated with the spot. Northwards,across the broad plain to which the hill of Panopeus descends, steep andbare, the eye rested on the gap in the hills through which the Cephissuswinds his tortuous way to flow under grey willows, at the foot of barrenstony hills, till his turbid waters lose themselves, no longer in the vastreedy swamps of the now vanished Copaic Lake, but in the darkness of acavern in the limestone rock. Eastward, clinging to the slopes of thebleak range of which the hill of Panopeus forms part, were the ruins ofChaeronea, the birthplace of Plutarch; and out there in the plain wasfought the disastrous battle which laid Greece at the feet of Macedonia. There, too, in a later age East and West met in deadly conflict, when theRoman armies under Sulla defeated the Asiatic hosts of Mithridates. Suchwas the landscape spread out before me on one of those farewell autumn daysof almost pathetic splendour, when the departing summer seems to lingerfondly, as if loth to resign to winter the enchanted mountains of Greece. Next day the scene had changed: summer was gone. A grey November misthung low on the hills which only yesterday had shone resplendent in thesun, and under its melancholy curtain the dead flat of the Chaeroneanplain, a wide treeless expanse shut in by desolate slopes, wore an aspectof chilly sadness befitting the battlefield where a nation's freedom waslost.

But crowded as the prospect from Panopeus is with memories of the past, theplace itself, now so still and deserted, was once the scene of an eventeven more ancient and memorable, if Greek story-tellers can be trusted. For here, they say, the sage Prometheus created our first parents byfashioning them, like a potter, out of clay. (Pausanias X. 4.4. CompareApollodorus, "Bibliotheca", I. 7. 1; Ovid, "Metamorph." I. 82 sq.; Juvenal,"Sat". XIV. 35. According to another version of the tale, this creation ofmankind took place not at Panopeus, but at Iconium in Lycaonia. After theoriginal race of mankind had been destroyed in the great flood ofDeucalion, the Greek Noah, Zeus commanded Prometheus and Athena to createmen afresh by moulding images out of clay, breathing the winds into them,and making them live. See "Etymologicum Magnum", s.v. "'Ikonion", pages470 sq. It is said that Prometheus fashioned the animals as well as men,giving to each kind of beast its proper nature. See Philemon, quoted byStobaeus, "Florilegium" II. 27. The creation of man by Prometheus isfigured on ancient works of art. See J. Toutain, "Etudes de Mythologie etd'Histoire des Religions Antiques" (Paris, 1909), page 190. According toHesiod ("Works and Days", 60 sqq.) it was Hephaestus who at the bidding ofZeus moulded the first woman out of moist earth.) The very spot where hedid so can still be seen. It is a forlorn little glen or rather hollowbehind the hill of Panopeus, below the ruined but still stately walls andtowers which crown the grey rocks of the summit. The glen, when I visitedit that hot day after the long drought of summer, was quite dry; no watertrickled down its bushy sides, but in the bottom I found a reddishcrumbling earth, a relic perhaps of the clay out of which the potterPrometheus moulded the Greek Adam and Eve. In a volume dedicated to thehonour of one who has done more than any other in modern times to shape theideas of mankind as to their origin it may not be out of place to recallthis crude Greek notion of the creation of the human race, and to compareor contrast it with other rudimentary speculations of primitive peoples onthe same subject, if only for the sake of marking the interval whichdivides the childhood from the maturity of science.

The simple notion that the first man and woman were modelled out of clay bya god or other superhuman being is found in the traditions of many peoples. This is the Hebrew belief recorded in Genesis: "The Lord God formed man ofthe dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;and man became a living soul." (Genesis ii.7.) To the Hebrews thisderivation of our species suggested itself all the more naturally becausein their language the word for "ground" (adamah) is in form the feminine ofthe word for man (adam). (S.R. Driver and W.H.Bennett, in theircommentaries on Genesis ii. 7.) From various allusions in Babylonianliterature it would seem that the Babylonians also conceived man to havebeen moulded out of clay. (H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader's "DieKeilinschriften und das Alte Testament"3 (Berlin, 1902), page 506.) According to Berosus, the Babylonian priest whose account of creation hasbeen preserved in a Greek version, the god Bel cut off his own head, andthe other gods caught the flowing blood, mixed it with earth, and fashionedmen out of the bloody paste; and that, they said, is why men are so wise,because their mortal clay is tempered with divine blood. (Eusebius,"Chronicon", ed. A. Schoene, Vol. I. (Berlin, 1875), col. 16.) In Egyptianmythology Khnoumou, the Father of the gods, is said to have moulded men outof clay. (G. Maspero, "Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'OrientClassique", I. (Paris, 1895), page 128.) We cannot doubt that such crudeconceptions of the origin of our race were handed down to the civilisedpeoples of antiquity by their savage or barbarous forefathers. Certainlystories of the same sort are known to be current among savages andbarbarians.

Thus the Australian blacks in the neighbourhood of Melbourne said thatPund-jel, the creator, cut three large sheets of bark with his big knife. On one of these he placed some clay and worked it up with his knife into aproper consistence. He then laid a portion of the clay on one of the otherpieces of bark and shaped it into a human form; first he made the feet,then the legs, then the trunk, the arms, and the head. Thus he made a clayman on each of the two pieces of bark; and being well pleased with them hedanced round them for joy. Next he took stringy bark from the Eucalyptustree, made hair of it, and stuck it on the heads of his clay men. Then helooked at them again, was pleased with his work, and again danced roundthem for joy. He then lay down on them, blew his breath hard into theirmouths, their noses, and their navels; and presently they stirred, spoke,and rose up as full-grown men. (R. Brough Smyth, "The Aborigines ofVictoria" (Melbourne, 1878), I. 424. This and many of the followinglegends of creation have been already cited by me in a note on Pausanias X.4. 4 ("Pausanias's Description of Greece, translated with a Commentary"(London, 1898), Vol V. pages 220 sq.).) The Maoris of New Zealand say thatTiki made man after his own image. He took red clay, kneaded it, like theBabylonian Bel, with his own blood, fashioned it in human form, and gavethe image breath. As he had made man in his own likeness he called himTiki-ahua or Tiki's likeness. (R. Taylor "Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealandand its Inhabitants", Second Edition (London, 1870), page 117. Compare E.Shortland, "Maori Religion and Mythology" (London, 1882), pages 21 sq.) Avery generally received tradition in Tahiti was that the first human pairwas made by Taaroa, the chief god. They say that after he had formed theworld he created man out of red earth, which was also the food of mankinduntil bread-fruit was produced. Further, some say that one day Taaroacalled for the man by name, and when he came he made him fall asleep. Ashe slept, the creator took out one of his bones (ivi) and made a woman ofit, whom he gave to the man to be his wife, and the pair became theprogenitors of mankind. This narrative was taken down from the lips of thenatives in the early years of the mission to Tahiti. The missionary whorecords it observes: "This always appeared to me a mere recital of theMosaic account of creation, which they had heard from some European, and Inever placed any reliance on it, although they have repeatedly told me itwas a tradition among them before any foreigner arrived. Some have alsostated that the woman's name was Ivi, which would be by them pronounced asif written "Eve". "Ivi" is an aboriginal word, and not only signifies abone, but also a widow, and a victim slain in war. Notwithstanding theassertion of the natives, I am disposed to think that "Ivi", or Eve, is theonly aboriginal part of the story, as far as it respects the mother of thehuman race. (W. Ellis, "Polynesian Researches", Second Edition (London,1832), I. 110 sq. "Ivi" or "iwi" is the regular word for "bone" in thevarious Polynesian languages. See E. Tregear, "The Maori-PolynesianComparative Dictionary" (Wellington, New Zealand, 1891), page 109.) However, the same tradition has been recorded in other parts of Polynesiabesides Tahiti. Thus the natives of Fakaofo or Bowditch Island say thatthe first man was produced out of a stone. After a time he bethought himof making a woman. So he gathered earth and moulded the figure of a womanout of it, and having done so he took a rib out of his left side and thrustit into the earthen figure, which thereupon started up a live woman. Hecalled her Ivi (Eevee) or "rib" and took her to wife, and the whole humanrace sprang from this pair. (G. Turner, "Samoa" (London, 1884), pages 267sq.) The Maoris also are reported to believe that the first woman was madeout of the first man's ribs. (J.L. Nicholas, "Narrative of a Voyage to NewZealand" (London, 1817), I. 59, who writes "and to add still more to thisstrange coincidence, the general term for bone is 'Hevee'.") This widediffusion of the story in Polynesia raises a doubt whether it is merely, asEllis thought, a repetition of the Biblical narrative learned fromEuropeans. In Nui, or Netherland Island, it was the god Aulialia who madeearthen models of a man and woman, raised them up, and made them live. Hecalled the man Tepapa and the woman Tetata. (G. Turner, "Samoa", pages 300sq.)

In the Pelew Islands they say that a brother and sister made men out ofclay kneaded with the blood of various animals, and that the characters ofthese first men and of their descendants were determined by the charactersof the animals whose blood had been kneaded with the primordial clay; forinstance, men who have rat's blood in them are thieves, men who haveserpent's blood in them are sneaks, and men who have cock's blood in themare brave. (J. Kubary, "Die Religion der Pelauer", in A. Bastian's"Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde" (Berlin, 1888), I. 3, 56.) According to a Melanesian legend, told in Mota, one of the Banks Islands,the hero Qat moulded men of clay, the red clay from the marshy river-sideat Vanua Lava. At first he made men and pigs just alike, but his brothersremonstrated with him, so he beat down the pigs to go on all fours and mademen walk upright. Qat fashioned the first woman out of supple twigs, andwhen she smiled he knew she was a living woman. (R.H. Codrington, "TheMelanesians" (Oxford, 1891), page 158.) A somewhat different version ofthe Melanesian story is told at Lakona, in Santa Maria. There they saythat Qat and another spirit ("vui") called Marawa both made men. Qat madethem out of the wood of dracaena-trees. Six days he worked at them,carving their limbs and fitting them together. Then he allowed them sixdays to come to life. Three days he hid them away, and three days more heworked to make them live. He set them up and danced to them and beat hisdrum, and little by little they stirred, till at last they could stand allby themselves. Then Qat divided them into pairs and called each pairhusband and wife. Marawa also made men out of a tree, but it was adifferent tree, the tavisoviso. He likewise worked at them six days, beathis drum, and made them live, just as Qat did. But when he saw them move,he dug a pit and buried them in it for six days, and then, when he scrapedaway the earth to see what they were doing, he found them all rotten andstinking. That was the origin of death. (R.H. Codrington op. cit., pages157 sq.)

The inhabitants of Noo-Hoo-roa, in the Kei Islands say that their ancestorswere fashioned out of clay by the supreme god, Dooadlera, who breathed lifeinto the clay figures. (C.M. Pleyte, "Ethnographische Beschrijving derKei-Eilanden", "Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch AardrijkskundigGenootschap", Tweede Serie X. (1893), page 564.) The aborigines ofMinahassa, in the north of Celebes, say that two beings called WailanWangko and Wangi were alone on an island, on which grew a cocoa-nut tree. Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, "Remain on earth while I climb up the tree." Said Wangi to Wailan Wangko, "Good." But then a thought occurred to Wangiand he climbed up the tree to ask Wailan Wangko why he, Wangi, shouldremain down there all alone. Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, "Return and takeearth and make two images, a man and a woman." Wangi did so, and bothimages were men who could move but could not speak. So Wangi climbed upthe tree to ask Wailan Wangko, "How now? The two images are made, but theycannot speak." Said Wailan Wangko to Wangi, "Take this ginger and go andblow it on the skulls and the ears of these two images, that they may beable to speak; call the man Adam and the woman Ewa." (N. Graafland "DeMinahassa" (Rotterdam, 1869), I. pages 96 sq.) In this narrative the namesof the man and woman betray European influence, but the rest of the storymay be aboriginal. The Dyaks of Sakarran in British Borneo say that thefirst man was made by two large birds. At first they tried to make men outof trees, but in vain. Then they hewed them out of rocks, but the figurescould not speak. Then they moulded a man out of damp earth and infusedinto his veins the red gum of the kumpang-tree. After that they called tohim and he answered; they cut him and blood flowed from his wounds. (Horsburgh, quoted by H. Ling Roth, "The Natives of Sarawak and of BritishNorth Borneo" (London, 1896), I. pages 299 sq. Compare The Lord Bishop ofLabuan, "On the Wild Tribes of the North-West Coast of Borneo,""Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London", New Series, II.(1863), page 27.)

The Kumis of South-Eastern India related to Captain Lewin, the DeputyCommissioner of Hill Tracts, the following tradition of the creation ofman. "God made the world and the trees and the creeping things first, andafter that he set to work to make one man and one woman, forming theirbodies of clay; but each night, on the completion of his work, there came agreat snake, which, while God was sleeping, devoured the two images. Thishappened twice or thrice, and God was at his wit's end, for he had to workall day, and could not finish the pair in less than twelve hours; besides,if he did not sleep, he would be no good," said Captain Lewin's informant. "If he were not obliged to sleep, there would be no death, nor wouldmankind be afflicted with illness. It is when he rests that the snakecarries us off to this day. Well, he was at his wit's end, so at last hegot up early one morning and first made a dog and put life into it, andthat night, when he had finished the images, he set the dog to watch them,and when the snake came, the dog barked and frightened it away. This isthe reason at this day that when a man is dying the dogs begin to howl; butI suppose God sleeps heavily now-a-days, or the snake is bolder, for mendie all the same." (Capt. T.H. Lewin, "Wild Races of South-Eastern India"(London, 1870), pages 224-26.) The Khasis of Assam tell a similar tale. (A. Bastian, "Volkerstamme am Brahmaputra und verwandtschaftliche Nachbarn"(Berlin, 1883), page 8; Major P.R.T. Gurdon, "The Khasis" (London, 1907),page 106.)

The Ewe-speaking tribes of Togo-land, in West Africa, think that God stillmakes men out of clay. When a little of the water with which he moistensthe clay remains over, he pours it on the ground and out of that he makesthe bad and disobedient people. When he wishes to make a good man he makeshim out of good clay; but when he wishes to make a bad man, he employs onlybad clay for the purpose. In the beginning God fashioned a man and set himon the earth; after that he fashioned a woman. The two looked at eachother and began to laugh, whereupon God sent them into the world. (J.Spieth, "Die Ewe-Stamme, Material zur Kunde des Ewe-Volkes in Deutsch-Togo"(Berlin, 1906), pages 828, 840.) The Innuit or Esquimaux of Point Barrow,in Alaska, tell of a time when there was no man in the land, till a spiritnamed "a se lu", who resided at Point Barrow, made a clay man, set him upon the shore to dry, breathed into him and gave him life. ("Report of theInternational Expedition to Point Barrow" (Washington, 1885), page 47.) Other Esquimaux of Alaska relate how the Raven made the first woman out ofclay to be a companion to the first man; he fastened water-grass to theback of the head to be hair, flapped his wings over the clay figure, and itarose, a beautiful young woman. (E.W. Nelson, "The Eskimo about BeringStrait", "Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology",Part I. (Washington, 1899), page 454.) The Acagchemem Indians ofCalifornia said that a powerful being called Chinigchinich created man outof clay which he found on the banks of a lake; male and female created hethem, and the Indians of the present day are their descendants. (FriarGeronimo Boscana, "Chinigchinich", appended to (A. Robinson's) "Life inCalifornia" (New York, 1846), page 247.) A priest of the Natchez Indiansin Louisiana told Du Pratz "that God had kneaded some clay, such as thatwhich potters use and had made it into a little man; and that afterexamining it, and finding it well formed, he blew up his work, andforthwith that little man had life, grew, acted, walked, and found himselfa man perfectly well shaped." As to the mode in which the first woman wascreated, the priest had no information, but thought she was probably madein the same way as the first man; so Du Pratz corrected his imperfectnotions by reference to Scripture. (M. Le Page Du Pratz, "The History ofLouisiana" (London, 1774), page 330.) The Michoacans of Mexico said thatthe great god Tucapacha first made man and woman out of clay, but that whenthe couple went to bathe in a river they absorbed so much water that theclay of which they were composed all fell to pieces. Then the creator wentto work again and moulded them afresh out of ashes, and after that heessayed a third time and made them of metal. This last attempt succeeded. The metal man and woman bathed in the river without falling to pieces, andby their union they became the progenitors of mankind. (A. de Herrera,"General History of the vast Continent and Islands of America", translatedinto English by Capt. J. Stevens (London, 1725, 1726), III. 254; Brasseurde Bourbourg, "Histoire des Nations Civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique-Centrale" (Paris, 1857--1859), III. 80 sq; compare id. I. 54 sq.)

According to a legend of the Peruvian Indians, which was told to a Spanishpriest in Cuzco about half a century after the conquest, it was inTiahuanaco that man was first created, or at least was created afresh afterthe deluge. "There (in Tiahuanaco)," so runs the legend, "the Creatorbegan to raise up the people and nations that are in that region, makingone of each nation of clay, and painting the dresses that each one was towear; those that were to wear their hair, with hair, and those that were tobe shorn, with hair cut. And to each nation was given the language, thatwas to be spoken, and the songs to be sung, and the seeds and food thatthey were to sow. When the Creator had finished painting and making thesaid nations and figures of clay, he gave life and soul to each one, aswell men as women, and ordered that they should pass under the earth. Thence each nation came up in the places to which he ordered them to go." (E.J. Payne, "History of the New World called America", I. (Oxford, 1892),page 462.)

These examples suffice to prove that the theory of the creation of man outof dust or clay has been current among savages in many parts of the world.But it is by no means the only explanation which the savage philosopher hasgiven of the beginnings of human life on earth. Struck by the resemblanceswhich may be traced between himself and the beasts, he has often supposed,like Darwin himself, that mankind has been developed out of lower forms ofanimal life. For the simple savage has none of that high notion of thetranscendant dignity of man which makes so many superior persons shrinkwith horror from the suggestion that they are distant cousins of thebrutes. He on the contrary is not too proud to own his humble relations;indeed his difficulty often is to perceive the distinction between him andthem. Questioned by a missionary, a Bushman of more than averageintelligence "could not state any difference between a man and a brute--hedid not know but a buffalo might shoot with bows and arrows as well as man,if it had them." (Reverend John Campbell, "Travels in South Africa"(London, 1822, II. page 34.) When the Russians first landed on one of theAlaskan islands, the natives took them for cuttle-fish "on account of thebuttons on their clothes." (I. Petroff, "Report on the Population,Industries, and Resources of Alaska", page 145.) The Giliaks of the Amoorthink that the outward form and size of an animal are only apparent; insubstance every beast is a real man, just like a Giliak himself, onlyendowed with an intelligence and strength, which often surpass those ofmere ordinary human beings. (L. Sternberg, "Die Religion der Giljaken","Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft", VIII. (1905), page 248.) TheBorororos, an Indian tribe of Brazil, will have it that they are parrots ofa gorgeous red plumage which live in their native forests. Accordinglythey treat the birds as their fellow-tribesmen, keeping them in captivity,refusing to eat their flesh, and mourning for them when they die. (K. vonden Steinen, "Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens" (Berlin, 1894),pages 352 sq., 512.)

This sense of the close relationship of man to the lower creation is theessence of totemism, that curious system of superstition which unites by amystic bond a group of human kinsfolk to a species of animals or plants. Where that system exists in full force, the members of a totem clanidentify themselves with their totem animals in a way and to an extentwhich we find it hard even to imagine. For example, men of the Cassowaryclan in Mabuiag think that cassowaries are men or nearly so. "Cassowary,he all same as relation, he belong same family," is the account they giveof their relationship with the long-legged bird. Conversely they hold thatthey themselves are cassowaries for all practical purposes. They pridethemselves on having long thin legs like a cassowary. This reflectionaffords them peculiar satisfaction when they go out to fight, or to runaway, as the case may be; for at such times a Cassowary man will say tohimself, "My leg is long and thin, I can run and not feel tired; my legswill go quickly and the grass will not entangle them." Members of theCassowary clan are reputed to be pugnacious, because the cassowary is abird of very uncertain temper and can kick with extreme violence. (A.C.Haddon, "The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits", "Journalof the Anthropological Institute", XIX. (1890), page 393; "Reports of theCambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits", V. (Cambridge,1904), pages 166, 184.) So among the Ojibways men of the Bear clan arereputed to be surly and pugnacious like bears, and men of the Crane clan tohave clear ringing voices like cranes. (W.W. Warren, "History of theOjibways", "Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society", V. (SaintPaul, Minn. 1885), pages 47, 49.) Hence the savage will often speak of histotem animal as his father or his brother, and will neither kill it himselfnor allow others to do so, if he can help it. For example, if somebodywere to kill a bird in the presence of a native Australian who had the birdfor his totem, the black might say, "What for you kill that fellow? that myfather!" or "That brother belonging to me you have killed; why did you doit?" (E. Palmer, "Notes on some Australian Tribes", "Journal of theAnthropological Institute", XIII. (1884), page 300.) Bechuanas of thePorcupine clan are greatly afflicted if anybody hurts or kills a porcupinein their presence. They say, "They have killed our brother, our master,one of ourselves, him whom we sing of"; and so saying they piously gatherthe quills of their murdered brother, spit on them, and rub their eyebrowswith them. They think they would die if they touched its flesh. In likemanner Bechuanas of the Crocodile clan call the crocodile one ofthemselves, their master, their brother; and they mark the ears of theircattle with a long slit like a crocodile's mouth by way of a family crest. Similarly Bechuanas of the Lion clan would not, like the members of otherclans, partake of lion's flesh; for how, say they, could they eat theirgrandfather? If they are forced in self-defence to kill a lion, they do sowith great regret and rub their eyes carefully with its skin, fearing tolose their sight if they neglected this precaution. (T. Arbousset et F.Daumas, "Relation d'un Voyage d'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie duCap de Bonne-Esperance" (Paris, 1842), pages 349 sq., 422-24.) A Mandingoporter has been known to offer the whole of his month's pay to save thelife of a python, because the python was his totem and he thereforeregarded the reptile as his relation; he thought that if he allowed thecreature to be killed, the whole of his own family would perish, probablythrough the vengeance to be taken by the reptile kinsfolk of the murderedserpent. (M. le Docteur Tautain, "Notes sur les Croyances et PratiquesReligieuses des Banmanas", "Revue d'Ethnographie", III. (1885), pages 396sq.; A. Rancon, "Dans la Haute-Gambie, Voyage d'Exploration Scientifique"(Paris, 1894), page 445.)

Sometimes, indeed, the savage goes further and identifies the reveredanimal not merely with a kinsman but with himself; he imagines that one ofhis own more or less numerous souls, or at all events that a vital part ofhimself, is in the beast, so that if it is killed he must die. Thus, theBalong tribe of the Cameroons, in West Africa, think that every man hasseveral souls, of which one is lodged in an elephant, a wild boar, aleopard, or what not. When any one comes home, feels ill, and says, "Ishall soon die," and is as good as his word, his friends are of opinionthat one of his souls has been shot by a hunter in a wild boar or aleopard, for example, and that that is the real cause of his death. (J.Keller, "Ueber das Land und Volk der Balong", "Deutsches Kolonialblatt", 1October, 1895, page 484.) A Catholic missionary, sleeping in the hut of achief of the Fan negroes, awoke in the middle of the night to see a hugeblack serpent of the most dangerous sort in the act of darting at him. Hewas about to shoot it when the chief stopped him, saying, "In killing thatserpent, it is me that you would have killed. Fear nothing, the serpent ismy elangela." (Father Trilles, "Chez les Fang, leurs Moeurs, leur Langue,leur Religion", "Les Missions Catholiques", XXX. (1898), page 322.) AtCalabar there used to be some years ago a huge old crocodile which was wellknown to contain the spirit of a chief who resided in the flesh at DukeTown. Sporting Vice-Consuls, with a reckless disregard of human life, fromtime to time made determined attempts to injure the animal, and once apeculiarly active officer succeeded in hitting it. The chief wasimmediately laid up with a wound in his leg. He SAID that a dog had bittenhim, but few people perhaps were deceived by so flimsy a pretext. (MissMary H. Kingsley, "Travels in West Africa" (London, 1897), pages 538 sq. As to the external or bush souls of human beings, which in this part ofAfrica are supposed to be lodged in the bodies of animals, see Miss Mary H.Kingsley op. cit. pages 459-461; R. Henshaw, "Notes on the Efik belief in'bush soul'", "Man", VI.(1906), pages 121 sq.; J. Parkinson, "Notes on theAsaba people (Ibos) of the Niger", "Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute", XXXVI. (1906), pages 314 sq.) Once when Mr Partridge's canoe-men were about to catch fish near an Assiga town in Southern Nigeria, thenatives of the town objected, saying, "Our souls live in those fish, and ifyou kill them we shall die." (Charles Partridge, "Cross River Natives"(London, 1905), pages 225 sq.) On another occasion, in the same region, anEnglishman shot a hippopotamus near a native village. The same night awoman died in the village, and her friends demanded and obtained from themarksman five pounds as compensation for the murder of the woman, whosesoul or second self had been in that hippopotamus. (C.H. Robinson,"Hausaland" (London, 1896), pages 36 sq.) Similarly at Ndolo, in the Congoregion, we hear of a chief whose life was bound up with a hippopotamus, buthe prudently suffered no one to fire at the animal. ("Notes Analytiquessur les Collections Ethnographiques du Musee du Congo", I. (Brussels, 1902-06), page 150.

Amongst people who thus fail to perceive any sharp line of distinctionbetween beasts and men it is not surprising to meet with the belief thathuman beings are directly descended from animals. Such a belief is oftenfound among totemic tribes who imagine that their ancestors sprang fromtheir totemic animals or plants; but it is by no means confined to them. Thus, to take instances, some of the Californian Indians, in whosemythology the coyote or prairie-wolf is a leading personage, think thatthey are descended from coyotes. At first they walked on all fours; thenthey began to have some members of the human body, one finger, one toe, oneeye, one ear, and so on; then they got two fingers, two toes, two eyes, twoears, and so forth; till at last, progressing from period to period, theybecame perfect human beings. The loss of their tails, which they stilldeplore, was produced by the habit of sitting upright. (H.R. Schoolcraft,"Indian Tribes of the United States", IV. (Philadelphia, 1856), pages 224sq.; compare id. V. page 217. The descent of some, not all, Indians fromcoyotes is mentioned also by Friar Boscana, in (A. Robinson's) "Life inCalifornia" (New York, 1846), page 299.) Similarly Darwin thought that"the tail has disappeared in man and the anthropomorphous apes, owing tothe terminal portion having been injured by friction during a long lapse oftime; the basal and embedded portion having been reduced and modified, soas to become suitable to the erect or semi-erect position." (CharlesDarwin, "The Descent of Man", Second Edition (London, 1879), page 60.) TheTurtle clam of the Iroquois think that they are descended from real mudturtles which used to live in a pool. One hot summer the pool dried up,and the mud turtles set out to find another. A very fat turtle, waddlingafter the rest in the heat, was much incommoded by the weight of his shell,till by a great effort he heaved it off altogether. After that hegradually developed into a man and became the progenitor of the Turtleclan. (E.A. Smith, "Myths of the Iroquois", "Second Annual Report of theBureau of Ethnology" (Washington, 1883), page 77.) The Crawfish band ofthe Choctaws are in like manner descended from real crawfish, which used tolive under ground, only coming up occasionally through the mud to thesurface. Once a party of Choctaws smoked them out, taught them the Choctawlanguage, taught them to walk on two legs, made them cut off their toenails and pluck the hair from their bodies, after which they adopted theminto the tribe. But the rest of their kindred, the crawfish, are crawfishunder ground to this day. (Geo. Catlin, "North American Indians"4 (London,1844), II. page 128.) The Osage Indians universally believed that theywere descended from a male snail and a female beaver. A flood swept thesnail down to the Missouri and left him high and dry on the bank, where thesun ripened him into a man. He met and married a beaver maid, and from thepair the tribe of the Osages is descended. For a long time these Indiansretained a pious reverence for their animal ancestors and refrained fromhunting beavers, because in killing a beaver they killed a brother of theOsages. But when white men came among them and offered high prices forbeaver skins, the Osages yielded to the temptation and took the lives oftheir furry brethren. (Lewis and Clarke, "Travels to the Source of theMissouri River" (London, 1815), I. 12 (Vol. I. pages 44 sq. of the Londonreprint, 1905).) The Carp clan of the Ootawak Indians are descended fromthe eggs of a carp which had been deposited by the fish on the banks of astream and warmed by the sun. ("Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses", NouvelleEdition, VI. (Paris, 1781), page 171.) The Crane clan of the Ojibways aresprung originally from a pair of cranes, which after long wanderingssettled on the rapids at the outlet of Lake Superior, where they werechanged by the Great Spirit into a man and woman. (L.H. Morgan, "AncientSociety" (London, 1877), page 180.) The members of two Omaha clans wereoriginally buffaloes and lived, oddly enough, under water, which theysplashed about, making it muddy. And at death all the members of theseclans went back to their ancestors the buffaloes. So when one of them layadying, his friends used to wrap him up in a buffalo skin with the hairoutside and say to him, "You came hither from the animals and you are goingback thither. Do not face this way again. When you go, continue walking. (J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha Sociology", "Third Annual Report of the Bureau ofEthnology" (Washington, 1884), pages 229, 233.) The Haida Indians of QueenCharlotte Islands believe that long ago the raven, who is the chief figurein the mythology of North-West America, took a cockle from the beach andmarried it; the cockle gave birth to a female child, whom the raven took towife, and from their union the Indians were produced. (G.M. Dawson,"Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands" (Montreal, 1880), pages 149B sq. ("Geological Survey of Canada"); F. Poole, "Queen Charlotte Islands", page136.) The Delaware Indians called the rattle-snake their grandfather andwould on no account destroy one of these reptiles, believing that were theyto do so the whole race of rattle-snakes would rise up and bite them. Under the influence of the white man, however, their respect for theirgrandfather the rattle-snake gradually died away, till at last they killedhim without compunction or ceremony whenever they met him. The writer whorecords the old custom observes that he had often reflected on the curiousconnection which appears to subsist in the mind of an Indian between manand the brute creation; "all animated nature," says he, "in whateverdegree, is in their eyes a great whole, from which they have not yetventured to separate themselves." (Rev. John Heckewelder, "An Account ofthe History, Manners, and Customs, of the Indian Nations, who onceinhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States", "Transactions of theHistorical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society",I. (Philadelphia, 1819), pages 245, 247, 248.)

Some of the Indians of Peru boasted of being descended from the puma orAmerican lion; hence they adored the lion as a god and appeared atfestivals like Hercules dressed in the skins of lions with the heads of thebeasts fixed over their own. Others claimed to be sprung from condors andattired themselves in great black and white wings, like that enormous bird. (Garcilasso de la Vega, "First Part of the Royal Commentaries of theYncas", Vol. I. page 323, Vol. II. page 156 (Markham's translation).) TheWanika of East Africa look upon the hyaena as one of their ancestors or asassociated in some way with their origin and destiny. The death of ahyaena is mourned by the whole people, and the greatest funeral ceremonieswhich they perform are performed for this brute. The wake held over achief is as nothing compared to the wake held over a hyaena; one tribe onlymourns the death of its chief, but all the tribes unite to celebrate theobsequies of a hyaena. (Charles New, "Life, Wanderings, and Labours inEastern Africa" (London, 1873) page 122.) Some Malagasy families claim tobe descended from the babacoote (Lichanotus brevicaudatus), a large lemurof grave appearance and staid demeanour, which lives in the depth of theforest. When they find one of these creatures dead, his human descendantsbury it solemnly, digging a grave for it, wrapping it in a shroud, andweeping and lamenting over its carcase. A doctor who had shot a babacootewas accused by the inhabitants of a Betsimisaraka village of having killed"one of their grandfathers in the forest," and to appease their indignationhe had to promise not to skin the animal in the village but in a solitaryplace where nobody could see him. (Father Abinal, "Croyances fabuleusesdes Malgaches", "Les Missions Catholiques", XII. (1880), page 526; G.H.Smith, "Some Betsimisaraka superstitions", "The Antananarivo Annual andMadagascar Magazine", No. 10 (Antananarivo, 1886), page 239; H.W. Little,"Madagascar, its History and People" (London, 1884), pages 321 sq; A. vanGennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar" (Paris, 1904), pages 214 sqq.) Many of the Betsimisaraka believe that the curious nocturnal animal calledthe aye-aye (Cheiromys madagascariensis) "is the embodiment of theirforefathers, and hence will not touch it, much less do it an injury. It issaid that when one is discovered dead in the forest, these people make atomb for it and bury it with all the forms of a funeral. They think thatif they attempt to entrap it, they will surely die in consequence." (G.A.Shaw, "The Aye-aye", "Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine", Vol.II. (Antananarivo, 1896), pages 201, 203 (Reprint of the Second fourNumbers). Compare A. van Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar", pages223 sq.) Some Malagasy tribes believe themselves descended from crocodilesand accordingly they deem the formidable reptiles their brothers. If oneof these scaly brothers so far forgets the ties of kinship as to devour aman, the chief of the tribe, or in his absence an old man familiar with thetribal customs, repairs at the head of the people to the edge of the water,and summons the family of the culprit to deliver him up to the arm ofjustice. A hook is then baited and cast into the river or lake. Next daythe guilty brother or one of his family is dragged ashore, formally tried,sentenced to death, and executed. The claims of justice being thussatisfied, the dead animal is lamented and buried like a kinsman; a moundis raised over his grave and a stone marks the place of his head. (FatherAbinal, "Croyances fabuleuses des Malgaches", "Les Missions Catholiques",XII. (1880), page 527; A. van Gennep, "Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar",pages 281 sq.)

Amongst the Tshi-speaking tribes of the Gold Coast in West Africa theHorse-mackerel family traces its descent from a real horse-mackerel whom anancestor of theirs once took to wife. She lived with him happily in humanshape on shore till one day a second wife, whom the man had married,cruelly taunted her with being nothing but a fish. That hurt her so muchthat bidding her husband farewell she returned to her old home in the sea,with her youngest child in her arms, and never came back again. But eversince the Horse-mackerel people have refrained from eating horse-mackerels,because the lost wife and mother was a fish of that sort. (A.B. Ellis,"The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa" (London,1887), pages 208-11. A similar tale is told by another fish family whoabstain from eating the fish (appei) from which they take their name (A.B.Ellis op. cit. pages 211 sq.).) Some of the Land Dyaks of Borneo tell asimilar tale to explain a similar custom. "There is a fish which is takenin their rivers called a puttin, which they would on no account touch,under the idea that if they did they would be eating their relations. Thetradition respecting it is, that a solitary old man went out fishing andcaught a puttin, which he dragged out of the water and laid down in hisboat. On turning round, he found it had changed into a very pretty littlegirl. Conceiving the idea she would make, what he had long wished for, acharming wife for his son, he took her home and educated her until she wasfit to be married. She consented to be the son's wife cautioning herhusband to use her well. Some time after their marriage, however, beingout of temper, he struck her, when she screamed, and rushed away into thewater; but not without leaving behind her a beautiful daughter, who becameafterwards the mother of the race." (The Lord Bishop of Labuan, "On theWild Tribes of the North-West Coast of Borneo", "Transactions of theEthnological Society of London", New Series II. (London, 1863), pages 26sq. Such stories conform to a well-known type which may be called theSwan-Maiden type of story, or Beauty and the Beast, or Cupid and Psyche. The occurrence of stories of this type among totemic peoples, such as theTshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast, who tell them to explain theirtotemic taboos, suggests that all such tales may have originated intotemism. I shall deal with this question elsewhere.)

Members of a clan in Mandailing, on the west coast of Sumatra, assert thatthey are descended from a tiger, and at the present day, when a tiger isshot, the women of the clan are bound to offer betel to the dead beast. When members of this clan come upon the tracks of a tiger, they must, as amark of homage, enclose them with three little sticks. Further, it isbelieved that the tiger will not attack or lacerate his kinsmen, themembers of the clan. (H. Ris, "De Onderafdeeling Klein Mandailing Oeloe enPahantan en hare Bevolking met uitzondering van de Oeloes", "Bijdragen totde Tall- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlansch-Indie, XLVI. (1896), page473.) The Battas of Central Sumatra are divided into a number of clanswhich have for their totems white buffaloes, goats, wild turtle-doves,dogs, cats, apes, tigers, and so forth; and one of the explanations whichthey give of their totems is that these creatures were their ancestors, andthat their own souls after death can transmigrate into the animals. (J.B.Neumann, "Het Pane en Bila-stroomgebied op het eiland Sumatra","Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap", TweedeSerie, III. Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreide Artikelen, No. 2 (Amsterdam, 1886),pages 311 sq.; id. ib. Tweede Serie, IV. Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreideArtikelen, No. 1 (Amsterdam, 1887), pages 8 sq.) In Amboyna and theneighbouring islands the inhabitants of some villages aver that they aredescended from trees, such as the Capellenia moluccana, which had beenfertilised by the Pandion Haliaetus. Others claim to be sprung from pigs,octopuses, crocodiles, sharks, and eels. People will not burn the wood ofthe trees from which they trace their descent, nor eat the flesh of theanimals which they regard as their ancestors. Sicknesses of all sorts arebelieved to result from disregarding these taboos. (J.G.F. Riedel, "Desluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua" (The Hague, 1886),pages 32, 61; G.W.W.C. Baron van Hoevell, "Ambon en meer bepaaldelijk deOeliasers" (Dordrecht, 1875), page 152.) Similarly in Ceram persons whothink they are descended from crocodiles, serpents, iguanas, and sharkswill not eat the flesh of these animals. (J.G.F. Riedel op. cit. page122.) Many other peoples of the Molucca Islands entertain similar beliefsand observe similar taboos. (J.G.F. Riedel "De sluik- en kroesharigerassen tusschen Selebes en Papua" (The Hague, 1886), pages 253, 334, 341,348, 412, 414, 432.) Again, in Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, "Thedifferent families suppose themselves to stand in a certain relation toanimals, and especially to fishes, and believe in their descent from them. They actually name these animals 'mothers'; the creatures are sacred to thefamily and may not be injured. Great dances, accompanied with the offeringof prayers, are performed in their honour. Any person who killed such ananimal would expose himself to contempt and punishment, certainly also tothe vengeance of the insulted deity." Blindness is commonly supposed to bethe consequence of such a sacrilege. (Dr Hahl, "Mittheilungen uber Sittenund rechtliche Verhaltnisse auf Ponape", "Ethnologisches Notizblatt", Vol.II. Heft 2 (Berlin, 1901), page 10.)

Some of the aborigines of Western Australia believe that their ancestorswere swans, ducks, or various other species of water-fowl before they weretransformed into men. (Captain G. Grey, "A Vocabulary of the Dialects ofSouth Western Australia", Second Edition (London, 1840), pages 29, 37, 61,63, 66, 71.) The Dieri tribe of Central Australia, who are divided intototemic clans, explain their origin by the following legend. They say thatin the beginning the earth opened in the midst of Perigundi Lake, and thetotems (murdus or madas) came trooping out one after the other. Out camethe crow, and the shell parakeet, and the emu, and all the rest. Being asyet imperfectly formed and without members or organs of sense, they laidthemselves down on the sandhills which surrounded the lake then just asthey do now. It was a bright day and the totems lay basking in thesunshine, till at last, refreshed and invigorated by it, they stood up ashuman beings and dispersed in all directions. That is why people of thesame totem are now scattered all over the country. You may still see theisland in the lake out of which the totems came trooping long ago. (A.W.Howitt, "Native Tribes of South-East Australia" (London, 1904), pages 476,779 sq.) Another Dieri legend relates how Paralina, one of the Mura-Murasor mythical predecessors of the Dieri, perfected mankind. He was outhunting kangaroos, when he saw four incomplete beings cowering together. So he went up to them, smoothed their bodies, stretched out their limbs,slit up their fingers and toes, formed their mouths, noses, and eyes, stuckears on them, and blew into their ears in order that they might hear. Having perfected their organs and so produced mankind out of theserudimentary beings, he went about making men everywhere. (A.W. Howitt op.cit., pages 476, 780 sq.) Yet another Dieri tradition sets forth how theMura-Mura produced the race of man out of a species of small black lizards,which may still be met with under dry bark. To do this he divided the feetof the lizards into fingers and toes, and, applying his forefinger to themiddle of their faces, created a nose; likewise he gave them human eyes,mouths and ears. He next set one of them upright, but it fell down againbecause of its tail; so he cut off its tail and the lizard then walked onits hind legs. That is the origin of mankind. (S. Gason, "The Manners andCustoms of the Dieyerie tribe of Australian Aborigines", "Native Tribes ofSouth Australia" (Adelaide, 1879), page 260. This writer fell into themistake of regarding the Mura-Mura (Mooramoora) as a Good-Spirit instead ofas one of the mythical but more or less human predecessors of the Dieri inthe country. See A.W. Howitt, "Native Tribes of South-East Australia",pages 475 sqq.)

The Arunta tribe of Central Australia similarly tell how in the beginningmankind was developed out of various rudimentary forms of animal life. They say that in those days two beings called Ungambikula, that is, "out ofnothing," or "self-existing," dwelt in the western sky. From their loftyabode they could see, far away to the east, a number of inapertwacreatures, that is, rudimentary human beings or incomplete men, whom it wastheir mission to make into real men and women. For at that time there wereno real men and women; the rudimentary creatures (inapertwa) were ofvarious shapes and dwelt in groups along the shore of the salt water whichcovered the country. These embryos, as we may call them, had no distinctlimbs or organs of sight, hearing, and smell; they did not eat food, andthey presented the appearance of human beings all doubled up into a roundedmass, in which only the outline of the different parts of the body could bevaguely perceived. Coming down from their home in the western sky, armedwith great stone knives, the Ungambikula took hold of the embryos, oneafter the other. First of all they released the arms from the bodies, thenmaking four clefts at the end of each arm they fashioned hands and fingers;afterwards legs, feet, and toes were added in the same way. The figurecould now stand; a nose was then moulded and the nostrils bored with thefingers. A cut with the knife made the mouth, which was pulled openseveral times to render it flexible. A slit on each side of the faceseparated the upper and lower eye-lids, disclosing the eyes, which alreadyexisted behind them; and a few strokes more completed the body. Thus outof the rudimentary creatures were formed men and women. These rudimentarycreatures or embryos, we are told, "were in reality stages in thetransformation of various animals and plants into human beings, and thusthey were naturally, when made into human beings, intimately associatedwith the particular animal or plant, as the case may be, of which they werethe transformations--in other words, each individual of necessity belongedto a totem, the name of which was of course that of the animal or plant ofwhich he or she was a transformation." However, it is not said that allthe totemic clans of the Arunta were thus developed; no such tradition, forexample, is told to explain the origin of the important Witchetty Grubclan. The clans which are positively known, or at least said, to haveoriginated out of embryos in the way described are the Plum Tree, the GrassSeed, the Large Lizard, the Small Lizard, the Alexandra Parakeet, and theSmall Rat clans. When the Ungambikula had thus fashioned people of thesetotems, they circumcised them all, except the Plum Tree men, by means of afire-stick. After that, having done the work of creation or evolution, theUngambikula turned themselves into little lizards which bear a name meaning"snappers-up of flies." (Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, "Native Tribesof Central Australia (London, 1899), pages 388 sq.; compare id., "NorthernTribes of Central Australia" (London, 1904), page 150.)

This Arunta tradition of the origin of man, as Messrs Spencer and Gillen,who have recorded it, justly observe, "is of considerable interest; it isin the first place evidently a crude attempt to describe the origin ofhuman beings out of non-human creatures who were of various forms; some ofthem were representatives of animals, others of plants, but in all casesthey are to be regarded as intermediate stages in the transition of ananimal or plant ancestor into a human individual who bore its name as thatof his or her totem." (Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, "Native Tribes ofCentral Australia", pages 391 sq.) In a sense these speculations of theArunta on their own origin may be said to combine the theory of creationwith the theory of evolution; for while they represent men as developed outof much simpler forms of life, they at the same time assume that thisdevelopment was effected by the agency of two powerful beings, whom so farwe may call creators. It is well known that at a far higher stage ofculture a crude form of the evolutionary hypothesis was propounded by theGreek philosopher Empedocles. He imagined that shapeless lumps of earthand water, thrown up by the subterranean fires, developed into monstrousanimals, bulls with the heads of men, men with the heads of bulls, and soforth; till at last, these hybrid forms being gradually eliminated, thevarious existing species of animals and men were evolved. (E. Zeller, "DiePhilosophie der Griechen", I.4 (Leipsic, 1876), pages 718 sq.; H. Ritter etL. Preller, "Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae ex fontium lociscontexta"5, pages 102 sq. H. Diels, "Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker"2, I.(Berlin, 1906), pages 190 sqq. Compare Lucretius "De rerum natura", V. 837sqq.) The theory of the civilised Greek of Sicily may be set beside thesimilar theory of the savage Arunta of Central Australia. Both representgropings of the human mind in the dark abyss of the past; both were in ameasure grotesque anticipations of the modern theory of evolution.

In this essay I have made no attempt to illustrate all the many various anddivergent views which primitive man has taken of his own origin. I haveconfined myself to collecting examples of two radically different views,which may be distinguished as the theory of creation and the theory ofevolution. According to the one, man was fashioned in his existing shapeby a god or other powerful being; according to the other he was evolved bya natural process out of lower forms of animal life. Roughly speaking,these two theories still divide the civilised world between them. Thepartisans of each can appeal in support of their view to a large consensusof opinion; and if truth were to be decided by weighing the one consensusagainst the other, with "Genesis" in the one scale and "The Origin ofSpecies" in the other, it might perhaps be found, when the scales werefinally trimmed, that the balance hung very even between creation andevolution.

X. THE INFLUENCE OF DARWIN ON THE STUDY OF ANIMAL EMBRYOLOGY.

By A. SEDGWICK, M.A., F.R.S.Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in the University ofCambridge.

The publication of "The Origin of Species" ushered in a new era in thestudy of Embryology. Whereas, before the year 1859 the facts of anatomyand development were loosely held together by the theory of types, whichowed its origin to the great anatomists of the preceding generation, toCuvier, L. Agassiz, J. Muller, and R. Owen, they were now combined togetherinto one organic whole by the theory of descent and by the hypothesis ofrecapitulation which was deduced from that theory. The view (First clearlyenunciated by Fritz Muller in his well-known work, "Fur Darwin", Leipzig,1864; (English Edition, "Facts for Darwin", 1869).) that a knowledge ofembryonic and larval histories would lay bare the secrets of race-historyand enable the course of evolution to be traced, and so lead to thediscovery of the natural system of classification, gave a powerful stimulusto morphological study in general and to embryological investigation inparticular. In Darwin's words: "Embryology rises greatly in interest,when we look at the embryo as a picture, more or less obscured, of theprogenitor, either in its adult or larval state, of all the members of thesame great class." ("Origin" (6th edition), page 396.) In the periodunder consideration the output of embryological work has been enormous. Nogroup of the animal kingdom has escaped exhaustive examination and noeffort has been spared to obtain the embryos of isolated and out of the wayforms, the development of which might have an important bearing uponquestions of phylogeny and classification. Marine zoological stations havebeen established, expeditions have been sent to distant countries, and themethods of investigation have been greatly improved. The result of thisactivity has been that the main features of the developmental history ofall the most important animals are now known and the curiosity as todevelopmental processes, so greatly excited by the promulgation of theDarwinian theory, has to a considerable extent been satisfied.

To what extent have the results of this vast activity fulfilled theexpectations of the workers who have achieved them? The Darwin centenaryis a fitting moment at which to take stock of our position. In thisinquiry we shall leave out of consideration the immense and intenselyinteresting additions to our knowledge of Natural History. These may besaid to constitute a capital fund upon which philosophers, poets and men ofscience will draw for many generations. The interest of Natural Historyexisted long before Darwinian evolution was thought of and will endurewithout any reference to philosophic speculations. She is a mistress inwhose face are beauties and in whose arms are delights elsewhereunattainable. She is and always has been pursued for her own sake withoutany reference to philosophy, science, or utility.

Darwin's own views of the bearing of the facts of embryology upon questionsof wide scientific interest are perfectly clear. He writes ("Origin" (6thedition), page 395.):

"On the other hand it is highly probable that with many animals theembryonic or larval stages show us, more or less completely, the conditionof the progenitor of the whole group in its adult state. In the greatclass of the Crustacea, forms wonderfully distinct from each other, namely,suctorial parasites, cirripedes, entomostraca, and even the malacostraca,appear at first as larvae under the nauplius-form; and as these larvae liveand feed in the open sea, and are not adapted for any peculiar habits oflife, and from other reasons assigned by Fritz Muller, it is probable thatat some very remote period an independent adult animal, resembling theNauplius, existed, and subsequently produced, along several divergent linesof descent, the above-named great Crustacean groups. So again it isprobable, from what we know of the embryos of mammals, birds, fishes, andreptiles, that these animals are the modified descendants of some ancientprogenitor, which was furnished in its adult state with branchiae, a swim-bladder, four fin-like limbs, and a long tail, all fitted for an aquaticlife.

"As all the organic beings, extinct and recent, which have ever lived, canbe arranged within a few great classes; and as all within each class have,according to our theory, been connected together by fine gradations, thebest, and, if our collections were nearly perfect, the only possiblearrangement, would be genealogical; descent being the hidden bond ofconnexion which naturalists have been seeking under the term of the NaturalSystem. On this view we can understand how it is that, in the eyes of mostnaturalists, the structure of the embryo is even more important forclassification than that of the adult. In two or more groups of animals,however much they may differ from each other in structure and habits intheir adult condition, if they pass through closely similar embryonicstages, we may feel assured that they all are descended from one parent-form, and are therefore closely related. Thus, community in embryonicstructure reveals community of descent; but dissimilarity in embryonicdevelopment does not prove discommunity of descent, for in one of twogroups the developmental stages may have been suppressed, or may have beenso greatly modified through adaptation to new habits of life, as to be nolonger recognisable. Even in groups, in which the adults have beenmodified to an extreme degree, community of origin is often revealed by thestructure of the larvae; we have seen, for instance, that cirripedes,though externally so like shell-fish, are at once known by their larvae tobelong to the great class of crustaceans. As the embryo often shows usmore or less plainly the structure of the less modified and ancientprogenitor of the group, we can see why ancient and extinct forms so oftenresemble in their adult state the embryos of existing species of the sameclass. Agassiz believes this to be a universal law of nature; and we mayhope hereafter to see the law proved true. It can, however, be proved trueonly in those cases in which the ancient state of the progenitor of thegroup has not been wholly obliterated, either by successive variationshaving supervened at a very early period of growth, or by such variationshaving been inherited at an earlier stage than that at which they firstappeared. It should also be borne in mind, that the law may be true, butyet, owing to the geological record not extending far enough back in time,may remain for a long period, or for ever, incapable of demonstration. Thelaw will not strictly hold good in those cases in which an ancient formbecame adapted in its larval state to some special line of life, andtransmitted the same larval state to a whole group of descendants; for suchlarvae will not resemble any still more ancient form in its adult state."

As this passage shows, Darwin held that embryology was of interest becauseof the light it seems to throw upon ancestral history (phylogeny) andbecause of the help it would give in enabling us to arrive at a naturalsystem of classification. With regard to the latter point, he quotes withapproval the opinion that "the structure of the embryo is even moreimportant for classification than that of the adult." What justificationis there for this view? The phase of life chosen for the ordinaryanatomical and physiological studies, namely, the adult phase, is merelyone of the large number of stages of structure through which the organismpasses. By far the greater number of these are included in what isspecially called the developmental or (if we include larvae with embryos)embryonic period, for the developmental changes are more numerous and takeplace with greater rapidity at the beginning of life than in its laterperiods. As each of these stages is equal in value, for our presentpurpose, to the adult phase, it clearly follows that if there is anythingin the view that the anatomical study of organisms is of importance indetermining their mutual relations, the study of the organism in itsvarious embryonic (and larval) stages must have a greater importance thanthe study of the single and arbitrarily selected stage of life called theadult.

But a deeper reason than this has been assigned for the importance ofembryology in classification. It has been asserted, and is implied byDarwin in the passage quoted, that the ancestral history is repeated in acondensed form in the embryonic, and that a study of the latter enables usto form a picture of the stages of structure through which the organism haspassed in its evolution. It enables us on this view to reconstruct thepedigrees of animals and so to form a genealogical tree which shall be thetrue expression of their natural relations.

The real question which we have to consider is to what extent theembryological studies of the last 50 years have confirmed or renderedprobable this "theory of recapitulation." In the first place it must benoted that the recapitulation theory is itself a deduction from the theoryof evolution. The facts of embryology, particularly of vertebrateembryology, and of larval history receive, it is argued, an explanation onthe view that the successive stages of development are, on the whole,records of adult stages of structure which the species has passed throughin its evolution. Whether this statement will bear a critical verbalexamination I will not now pause to inquire, for it is more important todetermine whether any independent facts can be alleged in favour of thetheory. If it could be shown, as was stated to be the case by L. Agassiz,that ancient and extinct forms of life present features of structure nowonly found in embryos, we should have a body of facts of the greatestimportance in the present discussion. But as Huxley (See Huxley's"Scientific Memoirs", London, 1898, Vol. I. page 303: "There is no realparallel between the successive forms assumed in the development of thelife of the individual at present, and those which have appeared atdifferent epochs in the past." See also his Address to the GeologicalSociety of London (1862) 'On the Palaeontological Evidence of Evolution',ibid. Vol. II. page 512.) has shown and as the whole course ofpalaeontological and embryological investigation has demonstrated, no suchstatement can be made. The extinct forms of life are very similar to thosenow existing and there is nothing specially embryonic about them. So thatthe facts, as we know them, lend no support to theory.

But there is another class of facts which have been alleged in favour ofthe theory, viz. the facts which have been included in the generalisationknown as the Law of v. Baer. The law asserts that embryos of differentspecies of animals of the same group are more alike than the adults andthat, the younger the embryo, the greater are the resemblances. If thislaw could be established it would undoubtedly be a strong argument infavour of the "recapitulation" explanation of the facts of embryology. Butits truth has been seriously disputed. If it were true we should expect tofind that the embryos of closely similar species would be indistinguishablefrom one another, but this is notoriously not the case. It is moredifficult to meet the assertion when it is made in the form given above,for here we are dealing with matters of opinion. For instance, no onewould deny that the embryo of a dogfish is different from the embryo of arabbit, but there is room for difference of opinion when it is assertedthat the difference is less than the difference between an adult dogfishand an adult rabbit. It would be perfectly true to say that thedifferences between the embryos concern other organs more than do the